5 ms·

The thing about The Economist - there are small handful of topics, I do know something about. When The Economist writes about them, I tend to think "hey, that's

The thing about The Economist - there are small handful of topics, I do know something about. When The Economist writes about them, I tend to think "hey, that's a pretty good article". That tends to give me confidence in the quality of the rest of its coverage. I don't always agree with it, but it's at least well argued and thought provoking.

lmm 7y ago
Prospect is quite possibly the only other magazine for which I'd say the same, to be fair.
nabla9 7y ago
I agree. It's really good magazine considering how wide the scope it covers. Economist is clearly has point of view I don't nessesarlily agree with, but it's not any less high quality journalism because of it. Their viewpoint comes mostly from omission of subjects, focus and weighting of different things. Something any intelligent reader can live with.
gatestone 7y ago
Michael Chrichton wrote about this syndrome. When the economist writes about my job, IT, it is usually pretty good. When it writes about my country, Finland, it is sometimes a bit shallow, but the facts are still right. https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/
- fsloth 7y ago
  As another Finn I don't think it's shallow - I would call it terse. The facts speak for themselves. Like when describing the rabid gambling problem our country has due to state monopoly and broken incentives on public safety versus financial gains.
- nielsole 7y ago
  Just to note, he writes about the exact opposite of what is happening here.
- Kuiper 7y ago
  This actually sounds like the opposite of what Michael Crichton described. The Gell-Mann Amnesia occurs when, due to your domain expertise, you are able to see when a publication display a complete lack of understanding on the topic they are covering, yet despite this continue to assume that the publication is qualified to cover topics outside your narrow area of domain expertise. (It is, in a certain sense, a refusal to believe the evidence of your own eyes: you see that a publication has no credibility, yet continue to assume that it has credibility for some reason.) The effect described by the poster you're responding to is the opposite of that, and actually how credibility is presumed to normally work: you see that a publication get things right in a narrow domain that you have a lot of expertise in (and thus are qualified to identify which publications are purveyors of truth), and extrapolate that and assume, "if this one story is of impressive quality, then there's a good chance the rest of the publication is held to a similar standard." This is how a publication earns a badge of trustworthiness.
DangerousPie 7y ago
This has been exactly my feeling as well. I have found no other general-interest publication where I can read articles about my areas of expertise and not cringe.
- DougN7 7y ago
  Have you looked at The Atlantic? I keep coming across articles from it and have the same feeling about them as I do The Economist, but I’m not a subscriber to The Atlantic so I don’t really kno
davidhyde 7y ago
I had the opposite experience. I read an article I know a lot about once and, although factually correct, the whole thing was wrong because of what they left out and because of the smug 1st world conclusions they drew as a result. I don't know if they left out those facts because it didn't fit with the tone of the magazine of if they failed to do their research properly. I came to the conclusion that it was the former and from that point on I just couldn't trust anything I read from that magazine. They have this way of making the reader feel smug about the knowledge that they are picking up from the magazine without ever challenging the reader's core beliefs. What I am saying is that the magazine is never disagreeable for the reader. It's like only having friends who share your world view. How much are you missing out by not extending your reach?
- rumanator 7y ago
  Doesn't seem to be a reasonable stance to label an entire publication to be untrustable just because you feel it left out from an otherwise factual and subjective data point that you feel strongly about. If sounds a lot like you wanted an echo chamber but as you didn't experienced a specific echo then you just preferred to move onward.
  - msravi 7y ago
    Cherry picking facts that strengthen only one side of an argument is as bad, or even worse than getting the facts wrong. "Wrong facts" are easily caught. Facts that are omitted or those that are presented without context are only discernible to someone who knows the subject, and otherwise appears balanced and well argued to anyone who isn't an expert. Pointing out the omission of facts isn't "wanting an echo chamber".
    - rumanator 7y ago
      > Cherry picking facts OP's assertion was that the literature review didn't went as deep as he felt like it should with regards to a single data point. That's not remotely comparable to cherry picking.
msravi 7y ago
Interesting. Because I've several times come by articles in the Economist on subjects that I know, which argue a divisive point based on certain facts. But more often than not, the "facts" presented are deliberately one-sided and distorted by the act of omission.
chewz 7y ago
I had the opposite experience. The Economist is the least credible repporting source for me.
- DanBC 7y ago
  > The Economist is the least credible repporting source for me. The Sun? The Daily Mail? The Telegraph? The Guardian? The UK has a wide range of shitty print media and The Economist is better than most of them.

lmm 7y ago

Prospect is quite possibly the only other magazine for which I'd say the same, to be fair.

nabla9 7y ago

I agree. It's really good magazine considering how wide the scope it covers. Economist is clearly has point of view I don't nessesarlily agree with, but it's not any less high quality journalism because of it. Their viewpoint comes mostly from omission of subjects, focus and weighting of different things. Something any intelligent reader can live with.

gatestone 7y ago

Michael Chrichton wrote about this syndrome. When the economist writes about my job, IT, it is usually pretty good. When it writes about my country, Finland, it is sometimes a bit shallow, but the facts are still right. https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/

fsloth 7y ago
As another Finn I don't think it's shallow - I would call it terse. The facts speak for themselves. Like when describing the rabid gambling problem our country has due to state monopoly and broken incentives on public safety versus financial gains.
nielsole 7y ago
Just to note, he writes about the exact opposite of what is happening here.
Kuiper 7y ago
This actually sounds like the opposite of what Michael Crichton described. The Gell-Mann Amnesia occurs when, due to your domain expertise, you are able to see when a publication display a complete lack of understanding on the topic they are covering, yet despite this continue to assume that the publication is qualified to cover topics outside your narrow area of domain expertise. (It is, in a certain sense, a refusal to believe the evidence of your own eyes: you see that a publication has no credibility, yet continue to assume that it has credibility for some reason.) The effect described by the poster you're responding to is the opposite of that, and actually how credibility is presumed to normally work: you see that a publication get things right in a narrow domain that you have a lot of expertise in (and thus are qualified to identify which publications are purveyors of truth), and extrapolate that and assume, "if this one story is of impressive quality, then there's a good chance the rest of the publication is held to a similar standard." This is how a publication earns a badge of trustworthiness.

DangerousPie 7y ago

This has been exactly my feeling as well. I have found no other general-interest publication where I can read articles about my areas of expertise and not cringe.

DougN7 7y ago
Have you looked at The Atlantic? I keep coming across articles from it and have the same feeling about them as I do The Economist, but I’m not a subscriber to The Atlantic so I don’t really kno

davidhyde 7y ago

I had the opposite experience. I read an article I know a lot about once and, although factually correct, the whole thing was wrong because of what they left out and because of the smug 1st world conclusions they drew as a result. I don't know if they left out those facts because it didn't fit with the tone of the magazine of if they failed to do their research properly. I came to the conclusion that it was the former and from that point on I just couldn't trust anything I read from that magazine. They have this way of making the reader feel smug about the knowledge that they are picking up from the magazine without ever challenging the reader's core beliefs. What I am saying is that the magazine is never disagreeable for the reader. It's like only having friends who share your world view. How much are you missing out by not extending your reach?

rumanator 7y ago
Doesn't seem to be a reasonable stance to label an entire publication to be untrustable just because you feel it left out from an otherwise factual and subjective data point that you feel strongly about. If sounds a lot like you wanted an echo chamber but as you didn't experienced a specific echo then you just preferred to move onward.
- msravi 7y ago
  Cherry picking facts that strengthen only one side of an argument is as bad, or even worse than getting the facts wrong. "Wrong facts" are easily caught. Facts that are omitted or those that are presented without context are only discernible to someone who knows the subject, and otherwise appears balanced and well argued to anyone who isn't an expert. Pointing out the omission of facts isn't "wanting an echo chamber".
  - rumanator 7y ago
    > Cherry picking facts OP's assertion was that the literature review didn't went as deep as he felt like it should with regards to a single data point. That's not remotely comparable to cherry picking.

msravi 7y ago

Interesting. Because I've several times come by articles in the Economist on subjects that I know, which argue a divisive point based on certain facts. But more often than not, the "facts" presented are deliberately one-sided and distorted by the act of omission.

chewz 7y ago

I had the opposite experience. The Economist is the least credible repporting source for me.

DanBC 7y ago
> The Economist is the least credible repporting source for me. The Sun? The Daily Mail? The Telegraph? The Guardian? The UK has a wide range of shitty print media and The Economist is better than most of them.