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>I can’t help but see some kind of special interest or agenda whenever I hear a news story now. I used to subscribe to The Economist. I then realized, after t

>I can’t help but see some kind of special interest or agenda whenever I hear a news story now. I used to subscribe to The Economist. I then realized, after they kept getting a lot of things wrong over the years, that in my humble opinion, a lot of their headlines should be read prepending the phrase "We would like you to believe that..." A lot of "movements" these days are completely astroturfed. There's a few foundations that sponsor thousands of institutions all with the same mission statement to make things look like they're a grassroots movement, but nobody really wanted any of it. That's what disconnecting from the media gets you. All that astroturfing flooding in from everywhere stops infecting one's understanding of the world with useless B.S. I've given up almost all mainstream media for podcasts because they can be produced for nothing and spend a long-time looking deeply into issues. They cost nothing to produce and host, so it's really hard to cancel them as well. It's not like video. Hosting audio costs very little. Listening to random podcasts I find from guest appearances on other people's podcasts and on and on almost feels like eavesdropping on real people talking instead of the same simple message broadcast over and over again via every notable news outlet.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yshJn7lgVsY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yshJn7lgVsY

rolleiflex 5y ago
As a subscriber to the Economist myself, would you be able to give examples as to what you found wrong and in bad faith? I have found errors in the past, especially in subjects that I am more of an expert on, but none (so far) in bad faith. If you know of some, I’d very much like to know so as to reassess who my trust lies with.
- narrator 5y ago
  For one, regularly since the early 1990s, they've been predicting a Japan style credit crisis in China. That credit crisis never comes. They have had article after article talking about huge debt levels in the banks, etc. Nothing ever happens.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    Good, their economic prediction concerning China was wrong. So far. I don't see any substantial error or bad faith in that.
    - narrator 5y ago
      When you get stuff wrong regularly for 3 decades it's kind of a substantial error in my opinion. They also kept criticizing China's economic policies and banking regulations saying that they needed to change how they did things to avoid doom. Open up their financial system, etc. The Economist representing the perspective of western financial power, it just had the appearance of being self-serving, or at least arrogant. They couldn't get out of their orthodoxy and at least investigate what was going on to correct their analysis. Not like I am a big fan of the CCP, but give the devil its due from time to time, or at least figure out how the magic tricks work.
      - simtel20 5y ago
        I would say that the economist represents what remains of the British imperial perspective, not western financial power if it diverges from that, and that it is pretty clear about that perspective. It wants to imagine that it is advising British industry on how to strike out and dominate.
      - mavhc 5y ago
        Why are they printing these articles? I assume to change the future, warning of a financial crisis should lessen the effects as fewer people put money into the broken system. So maybe they averted the future by predicting it
    - throwawayzRUU6f 5y ago
      Well, it doesn't end with China. Around ~2010, once you scrub off the weasel word hedging, The Economist was predicting an imminent Eurozone breakup. It didn't predict the entirely predictable austerity recessions of 2012-2015. They were fairly bullish on Abenomics in Japan. They were very bullish on the future of BRICS around ~2008, out of which Brazil, Russia and South Africa are stagnating ever since. Then, there's a very important tool in forming editorial slant - omitting reporting on inconvenient facts. Italy and Spain, the putatively sluggish laggards strangled by overly strict labor protection laws, have somehow overtaken the allegedly dynamic UK in labor productivity. Ireland, the purported economic wonder, have a household disposable income (a fairly good metric of material standards of living), lower than Italy and much lower than France. We keep hearing about the importance of education, competitiveness, R&D and ease of doing business, yet somehow Finland, which tops the rankings, is in year 14 of it's economic stagnation. Have you heard any of this from The Economist?
- willhinsa 5y ago
  I lost any respect I had for them when they were running Chinese propaganda. [0] https://shootingthemessenger.blog/2020/08/10/the-economist-disappears-advertisement-feature-paid-for-by-chinese-communist-party/ https://shootingthemessenger.blog/2020/08/10/the-economist-d... The author of that blog also got a byline in articles in Buzzfeed News [1] and The Guardian [2] about the same thing happening at the Daily Telegraph. [1] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/deansterlingjones/coronavirus-british-newspaper-chinese-propaganda https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/deansterlingjones/coron... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/14/daily-telegraph-stops-publishing-section-paid-for-by-china https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/14/daily-telegrap...
  - seaorg 5y ago
    Holy crap
- galtwho 5y ago
  Well if you are asking in good faith, then deep dive and find out if the allegation made here are true or not The Govt of India has basically stated that Economist peddled baseless allegations and if look deeper you will see it is wrong and in deliberate bad faith. https://www.opindia.com/2021/06/goi-rebuts-economist-report-claiming-india-suffered-more-covid-deaths/ https://www.opindia.com/2021/06/goi-rebuts-economist-report-...
  - square_usual 5y ago
    If you're trying to rebut the Economist with OpIndia you'll have to try harder, likewise with accusing the Economist of "deliberate bad faith" and linking to a page that is not afraid to wear its ideological biases on its sleeve.
    - galtwho 5y ago
      if they have reported anything incorrect, point it out. quit indulging in ad hominem arguments.
      - hairofadog 5y ago
        There's a lot of indicators of bad faith in the OpIndia article, but I don't see any in the Economist article. From the OpIndia article: - "A few weeks back, controversial left-wing US media outlet New York Times had come up with imaginary numbers..." (hyperbole, ad-hominem) - "The low death rate in the country has become a major concern for the western press, who are trying hard to depict India in a bad light." (Are they? Why? Is the "western press" working in concert on this project?) - "However, the entire analysis done in the article was based on ‘estimates’ based on randomly selected numbers" (So the allegation is that the researcher and/or the Economist selected numbers randomly to represent the Covid death toll in India?) - "[...] it seems like the Indian government has finally decided to take on the misinformation warfare being propagated by a certain section of western media" (Does this seem like an unbiased presentation of facts?) The implication, as far as I can tell, is that "western media" is seeking to embarrass the current leaders of Indian government out of pure spite. However, to my eyes, a more believable story is that the government of India is embarrassed by the high Covid death tolls and would like to adjust the numbers downward. From a story in NPR: > FRAYER: There is another reason why India's coronavirus numbers may be skewed - hubris. In early March, India's health minister declared the pandemic over, but cases were actually creeping up, and some politicians didn't want to ruin the narrative. Dr. A. Velumani runs a nationwide chain of medical labs. He told local media his labs have come under pressure from local politicians to manipulate coronavirus tests and report fewer positive results. [^1] We saw this very same narrative play out here in the United States under the Trump administration, and just like in the OpIndia story, when confronted with evidence they had mishandled the response to the pandemic, the government responded, "Fake news! They're out to get me!" The New York Times article mentioned in the OpIndia piece [^2] also seems to be in good faith, explaining how they arrived at their estimates in great detail. To summarize: when I put on my critical-thinking cap, what I see is the Economist, the New York Times, and NPR presenting good-faith, easy-to-believe arguments that the death toll in India is higher than reported by the Indian government, and OpIndia presenting the difficult-to-believe argument that it isn't, but that western media wants to depict the government of India in a bad light for unknown reasons. [^1]: https://www.npr.org/2021/04/29/992122467/indias-real-death-toll-may-be-many-times-higher-than-the-official-count https://www.npr.org/2021/04/29/992122467/indias-real-death-t... [^2]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/25/world/asia/india-covid-death-estimates.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/25/world/asia/in...
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- yardie 5y ago
  I remember when them and other news media pilloried Iceland for not honouring foreign debts taken out by private Icelandic banks during the recession. It was going to be the end of country since no one would loan them money in the future. Iceland was one of the first countries to emerge the recession.
- jaratec 5y ago
  As a former subscriber I can point this out: One gigantic error: they have not seen the 2007/2008 crisis coming. Their policy recommendations are always the same: "cut red tape", privatize, remove tariffs..., and this mirrors their ideological beliefs, not any hard won expertise. They are also in denial about the unfolding ecological crisis. Look also at their job ads to understand with whom they are aligned. In sum, The Economist is a propaganda paper, that is well written, informative even if you can remove their rather obvious slant.
  - gruez 5y ago
    >As a former subscriber I can point this out: One gigantic error: they have not seen the 2007/2008 crisis coming. Who did see it coming? Are there any media outlets that reliability predicted financial crises?
    - foobiekr 5y ago
      A ton of websites predicted that the avalanche of mortgage debt that could not be paid was going to destroy the financial system. Mike Sherlock for one. He’s gotten dumb but he was on point on this.
donkeyd 5y ago
You're really giving too much credit to podcasts here. If you were to look at your argument from the other side, the fact that it costs next to nothing makes it a really cheap way to spread biased/false information. (See: Alex Jones) The majority of podcasts I've listened to have an obvious political bias, even the ones I would deem mostly objective clearly show some of the hosts biases. I've actually stopped listening to some because of this. ('Reply All' and 'Rich Dad Radio Show', for example, at opposite ends of the spectrum.) If you know of a podcast that purely, subjectively presents news, I'd love to hear it!
- narrator 5y ago
  Alex Jones's biggest sin is he's boring. He repeats himself over and over again. You could listen to him for 30 minutes and then tune in 12 months later and it's the same stuff, whatever you make of it. Art Bell was a conspiracy theory guy back in the day on late night radio, but he was damned interesting and talked to all kinds of random interesting weirdos. Many of them not that credible, but at least interesting. Not to sound old and cranky, but back in my day, when you heard someone interviewed, it was up to the person listening to evaluate their credibility and not to be protected in a little bubble because one was assumed to be too easily influenced to listen to the unvetted. Podcasts are by no means "The Truth", but at least they are not on the mainstream narrative script and they often don't have a purely political focus. As long as they aren't solely discussing the mainstream news narrative or reacting to it, they can be very interesting. I think Bret Weinstein can be pretty interesting as far as media criticism goes. The Other Life podcast[1] is an example of a podcast that's very disconnected from the mainstream narratives and feels like I'm sitting in a cafe in the 90s drinking coffee with a bunch of intellectual weirdos. Maybe not your cup of tea, or coffee, but it's better than listening to the mainstream news and filling myself with that garbage. [1]https://otherlife.transistor.fm/episodes https://otherlife.transistor.fm/episodes
  - totony 5y ago
    Also podcasts are mostly assumed to be biased by the host, as he directs the conversation. Mainstream news has more indirection from reader to writer so the bias is less tangible.
closeparen 5y ago
Sometimes I think it would be comforting to write off the opinions of my fellow citizens as (influenced by) paid shills. But I’m pretty sure it would be a rationalization to avoid the unpleasant reality of genuine conflicts and differences. I also see a lot of genuine local grassroots stuff that makes my blood boil (NIMBYism), so I don’t really attach a moral credit to those qualities.
xapata 5y ago
The _Economist_ was founded to provide a particular point of view. You should always consider the speaker's biases. It doesn't mean they're wrong.
smackay 5y ago
The Economist definitely have a specific world-view and to be fair they would probably be the first to tell you that. I now read their articles with a certain amount of scepticism, particularly if it's topical but not necessarily current affairs. There is still value to be gotten out of the magazine but if you're looking for accuracy or truth that can be relied on then I think that ship sailed a long time ago. "Thankfully" the internet has allowed everybody to finally realise that.
Synaesthesia 5y ago
No such thing as subjectivity. What's important is that people are looking for the truth and reporting accurately as possible. I'm more interested in penetrating analysis than "subjectivity". I read the news with a skeptics eye, knowing that they always have an agenda.

rolleiflex 5y ago

As a subscriber to the Economist myself, would you be able to give examples as to what you found wrong and in bad faith? I have found errors in the past, especially in subjects that I am more of an expert on, but none (so far) in bad faith. If you know of some, I’d very much like to know so as to reassess who my trust lies with.

narrator 5y ago
For one, regularly since the early 1990s, they've been predicting a Japan style credit crisis in China. That credit crisis never comes. They have had article after article talking about huge debt levels in the banks, etc. Nothing ever happens.
- hef19898 5y ago
  Good, their economic prediction concerning China was wrong. So far. I don't see any substantial error or bad faith in that.
  - narrator 5y ago
    When you get stuff wrong regularly for 3 decades it's kind of a substantial error in my opinion. They also kept criticizing China's economic policies and banking regulations saying that they needed to change how they did things to avoid doom. Open up their financial system, etc. The Economist representing the perspective of western financial power, it just had the appearance of being self-serving, or at least arrogant. They couldn't get out of their orthodoxy and at least investigate what was going on to correct their analysis. Not like I am a big fan of the CCP, but give the devil its due from time to time, or at least figure out how the magic tricks work.
    - simtel20 5y ago
      I would say that the economist represents what remains of the British imperial perspective, not western financial power if it diverges from that, and that it is pretty clear about that perspective. It wants to imagine that it is advising British industry on how to strike out and dominate.
    - mavhc 5y ago
      Why are they printing these articles? I assume to change the future, warning of a financial crisis should lessen the effects as fewer people put money into the broken system. So maybe they averted the future by predicting it
  - throwawayzRUU6f 5y ago
    Well, it doesn't end with China. Around ~2010, once you scrub off the weasel word hedging, The Economist was predicting an imminent Eurozone breakup. It didn't predict the entirely predictable austerity recessions of 2012-2015. They were fairly bullish on Abenomics in Japan. They were very bullish on the future of BRICS around ~2008, out of which Brazil, Russia and South Africa are stagnating ever since. Then, there's a very important tool in forming editorial slant - omitting reporting on inconvenient facts. Italy and Spain, the putatively sluggish laggards strangled by overly strict labor protection laws, have somehow overtaken the allegedly dynamic UK in labor productivity. Ireland, the purported economic wonder, have a household disposable income (a fairly good metric of material standards of living), lower than Italy and much lower than France. We keep hearing about the importance of education, competitiveness, R&D and ease of doing business, yet somehow Finland, which tops the rankings, is in year 14 of it's economic stagnation. Have you heard any of this from The Economist?
willhinsa 5y ago
I lost any respect I had for them when they were running Chinese propaganda. [0] https://shootingthemessenger.blog/2020/08/10/the-economist-disappears-advertisement-feature-paid-for-by-chinese-communist-party/ https://shootingthemessenger.blog/2020/08/10/the-economist-d... The author of that blog also got a byline in articles in Buzzfeed News [1] and The Guardian [2] about the same thing happening at the Daily Telegraph. [1] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/deansterlingjones/coronavirus-british-newspaper-chinese-propaganda https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/deansterlingjones/coron... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/14/daily-telegraph-stops-publishing-section-paid-for-by-china https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/14/daily-telegrap...
- seaorg 5y ago
  Holy crap
galtwho 5y ago
Well if you are asking in good faith, then deep dive and find out if the allegation made here are true or not The Govt of India has basically stated that Economist peddled baseless allegations and if look deeper you will see it is wrong and in deliberate bad faith. https://www.opindia.com/2021/06/goi-rebuts-economist-report-claiming-india-suffered-more-covid-deaths/ https://www.opindia.com/2021/06/goi-rebuts-economist-report-...
- square_usual 5y ago
  If you're trying to rebut the Economist with OpIndia you'll have to try harder, likewise with accusing the Economist of "deliberate bad faith" and linking to a page that is not afraid to wear its ideological biases on its sleeve.
  - galtwho 5y ago
    if they have reported anything incorrect, point it out. quit indulging in ad hominem arguments.
    - hairofadog 5y ago
      There's a lot of indicators of bad faith in the OpIndia article, but I don't see any in the Economist article. From the OpIndia article: - "A few weeks back, controversial left-wing US media outlet New York Times had come up with imaginary numbers..." (hyperbole, ad-hominem) - "The low death rate in the country has become a major concern for the western press, who are trying hard to depict India in a bad light." (Are they? Why? Is the "western press" working in concert on this project?) - "However, the entire analysis done in the article was based on ‘estimates’ based on randomly selected numbers" (So the allegation is that the researcher and/or the Economist selected numbers randomly to represent the Covid death toll in India?) - "[...] it seems like the Indian government has finally decided to take on the misinformation warfare being propagated by a certain section of western media" (Does this seem like an unbiased presentation of facts?) The implication, as far as I can tell, is that "western media" is seeking to embarrass the current leaders of Indian government out of pure spite. However, to my eyes, a more believable story is that the government of India is embarrassed by the high Covid death tolls and would like to adjust the numbers downward. From a story in NPR: > FRAYER: There is another reason why India's coronavirus numbers may be skewed - hubris. In early March, India's health minister declared the pandemic over, but cases were actually creeping up, and some politicians didn't want to ruin the narrative. Dr. A. Velumani runs a nationwide chain of medical labs. He told local media his labs have come under pressure from local politicians to manipulate coronavirus tests and report fewer positive results. [^1] We saw this very same narrative play out here in the United States under the Trump administration, and just like in the OpIndia story, when confronted with evidence they had mishandled the response to the pandemic, the government responded, "Fake news! They're out to get me!" The New York Times article mentioned in the OpIndia piece [^2] also seems to be in good faith, explaining how they arrived at their estimates in great detail. To summarize: when I put on my critical-thinking cap, what I see is the Economist, the New York Times, and NPR presenting good-faith, easy-to-believe arguments that the death toll in India is higher than reported by the Indian government, and OpIndia presenting the difficult-to-believe argument that it isn't, but that western media wants to depict the government of India in a bad light for unknown reasons. [^1]: https://www.npr.org/2021/04/29/992122467/indias-real-death-toll-may-be-many-times-higher-than-the-official-count https://www.npr.org/2021/04/29/992122467/indias-real-death-t... [^2]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/25/world/asia/india-covid-death-estimates.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/25/world/asia/in...
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yardie 5y ago
I remember when them and other news media pilloried Iceland for not honouring foreign debts taken out by private Icelandic banks during the recession. It was going to be the end of country since no one would loan them money in the future. Iceland was one of the first countries to emerge the recession.
jaratec 5y ago
As a former subscriber I can point this out: One gigantic error: they have not seen the 2007/2008 crisis coming. Their policy recommendations are always the same: "cut red tape", privatize, remove tariffs..., and this mirrors their ideological beliefs, not any hard won expertise. They are also in denial about the unfolding ecological crisis. Look also at their job ads to understand with whom they are aligned. In sum, The Economist is a propaganda paper, that is well written, informative even if you can remove their rather obvious slant.
- gruez 5y ago
  >As a former subscriber I can point this out: One gigantic error: they have not seen the 2007/2008 crisis coming. Who did see it coming? Are there any media outlets that reliability predicted financial crises?
  - foobiekr 5y ago
    A ton of websites predicted that the avalanche of mortgage debt that could not be paid was going to destroy the financial system. Mike Sherlock for one. He’s gotten dumb but he was on point on this.

donkeyd 5y ago

You're really giving too much credit to podcasts here. If you were to look at your argument from the other side, the fact that it costs next to nothing makes it a really cheap way to spread biased/false information. (See: Alex Jones) The majority of podcasts I've listened to have an obvious political bias, even the ones I would deem mostly objective clearly show some of the hosts biases. I've actually stopped listening to some because of this. ('Reply All' and 'Rich Dad Radio Show', for example, at opposite ends of the spectrum.) If you know of a podcast that purely, subjectively presents news, I'd love to hear it!

narrator 5y ago
Alex Jones's biggest sin is he's boring. He repeats himself over and over again. You could listen to him for 30 minutes and then tune in 12 months later and it's the same stuff, whatever you make of it. Art Bell was a conspiracy theory guy back in the day on late night radio, but he was damned interesting and talked to all kinds of random interesting weirdos. Many of them not that credible, but at least interesting. Not to sound old and cranky, but back in my day, when you heard someone interviewed, it was up to the person listening to evaluate their credibility and not to be protected in a little bubble because one was assumed to be too easily influenced to listen to the unvetted. Podcasts are by no means "The Truth", but at least they are not on the mainstream narrative script and they often don't have a purely political focus. As long as they aren't solely discussing the mainstream news narrative or reacting to it, they can be very interesting. I think Bret Weinstein can be pretty interesting as far as media criticism goes. The Other Life podcast[1] is an example of a podcast that's very disconnected from the mainstream narratives and feels like I'm sitting in a cafe in the 90s drinking coffee with a bunch of intellectual weirdos. Maybe not your cup of tea, or coffee, but it's better than listening to the mainstream news and filling myself with that garbage. [1]https://otherlife.transistor.fm/episodes https://otherlife.transistor.fm/episodes
- totony 5y ago
  Also podcasts are mostly assumed to be biased by the host, as he directs the conversation. Mainstream news has more indirection from reader to writer so the bias is less tangible.

closeparen 5y ago

Sometimes I think it would be comforting to write off the opinions of my fellow citizens as (influenced by) paid shills. But I’m pretty sure it would be a rationalization to avoid the unpleasant reality of genuine conflicts and differences. I also see a lot of genuine local grassroots stuff that makes my blood boil (NIMBYism), so I don’t really attach a moral credit to those qualities.

xapata 5y ago

The _Economist_ was founded to provide a particular point of view. You should always consider the speaker's biases. It doesn't mean they're wrong.

smackay 5y ago

The Economist definitely have a specific world-view and to be fair they would probably be the first to tell you that. I now read their articles with a certain amount of scepticism, particularly if it's topical but not necessarily current affairs. There is still value to be gotten out of the magazine but if you're looking for accuracy or truth that can be relied on then I think that ship sailed a long time ago. "Thankfully" the internet has allowed everybody to finally realise that.

Synaesthesia 5y ago

No such thing as subjectivity. What's important is that people are looking for the truth and reporting accurately as possible. I'm more interested in penetrating analysis than "subjectivity". I read the news with a skeptics eye, knowing that they always have an agenda.