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As a long-time reader of The Economist I have to say that their latest issues (especially those related to the war) were pure propaganda, I think the issue that

As a long-time reader of The Economist I have to say that their latest issues (especially those related to the war) were pure propaganda, I think the issue that came up just after the war started had a mention of Russia every two articles (yes, even in their Arts&Culture section). The thing that really got to me (and which made me actually write them an email, the first in 10+ years) was their latest Charlemagne column [1], the one where they were comparing Orban and his political party/government to a virus (to Covid, as it happens). I tried to explain to that poor fellow/lady writing the column that making that comparison in these parts of the world (I live in neighbouring Romania) is extremely, extremely problematic, given past history. We were supposed to be the "good guys", the ones that are fighting against Orban the anti-semite, but we can't be the good guys anymore when we're borrowing well-known anti-semite tactics from the past. To say nothing that half-way through the article I was saying to myself: "maybe I'm imagining things, maybe painting your political enemies as a virus/disease is how it's done these day", until I saw one of the column's sub-titles that was just this text: Buda-pest . Absolutely horrendous. [1] https://archive.ph/OUfpc https://archive.ph/OUfpc

thatjoeoverthr 5y ago
The language and imagery in that article is disturbing. I feel you.
unmole 5y ago
When was the last time The Economist met a war it didn't like?
- paganel 5y ago
  I started reading it around 2005-2006, so just (relatively speaking) after the Iraq War had started (at that time, on paper, it still looked like a success), and I don't remember them being as partial to it as they are now when it comes to the West vs Russia. Granted, I wasn't reading them in the spring of 2003 when the invasion had indeed took place. Also, there was a despicable "interview" with Blair a few years ago out of which he got pretty much clean as a whistle when it came to the Iraq war, no ruffling the feathers or anything like that.
  - unmole 5y ago
    In 2003, they were championing the removal of Saddam by whatever means necessary. "Why war would be justified" ran the cover story: https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2003-02-22 https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2003-02-22
jacquesm 5y ago
Yes, this de-humanizing tactic is despicable.
_nalply 5y ago
You say that some issues of The Economist are propagandist. I am inclined to take this opinion seriously. This said I wonder how you got to this conclusion. What exactly ticked you off? I am asking this because I myself fell for some propaganda and this has shaken me up. I want to learn how to recognize propaganda better.
- paganel 5y ago
  > What exactly ticked you off? Can't pinpoint to an exact thing, because good propaganda is always diffuse, it kind of encircles you. Were it to be more "straightforward" it would be way easier for the target subject to just reject it, thus denying the propagandist's objective. It is easier for said target subject to say "no" (let's say) to one big thing that is presented to him than to say "no" to lots of smaller things addressed/presented to him, but which smaller things, taken together, have the same "effect" as the one big thing. Back to The Economist, and after that long digression, the signs were in a sort always there. For example when it comes to the China section that it's included in every issue there was always that feeling that nothing that the Chinese government/authorities did was right. If something good was happening in China it was because of individual people, if something bad was happening, it was, of course, the government's fault. And maybe the "government" is the wrong word, because there are lots of people in the West itself who think that the Government is always wrong, too, it was more like "it was the fault of the Chinese regime taken as a whole, of the way it was set up, of its ideological system". But when it came to the US the bad things were never the fault of the government, or if some government-related person was doing something wrong (think the previous US president) then it was the fault of that particular person, not of the entire system per se. Also, said US system, even with its minor faults, was always presented as being capable of self-correction, there was always an intrinsic belief that "things will get better, by definition". No such hope was attached to the Chinese-based system, which was always presented as an ideological dead-end (maybe not in this direct words, but that was the idea). And then there are even smaller things. One that stood up to me was when the previous president was accused of lying, a thing that lots of other US president had done in the past (and will probably do in the future, too) but which I hadn't seen presented as such by this magazine, I mean, not with those words. And not only that, but that lye accusation was written down in one of their columns with a capital L, something like "the big Lye", which is a basic propaganda technique: one is not a mere "traitor", but a big, dangerous, "Traitor", one just cannot think and reason about a nondescript "people", one instead dreams big nationalistic things while thinking about the "People" etc. The war/Russia issue I was talking about had all of the above dialed up to 100.

thatjoeoverthr 5y ago

The language and imagery in that article is disturbing. I feel you.

unmole 5y ago

When was the last time The Economist met a war it didn't like?

paganel 5y ago
I started reading it around 2005-2006, so just (relatively speaking) after the Iraq War had started (at that time, on paper, it still looked like a success), and I don't remember them being as partial to it as they are now when it comes to the West vs Russia. Granted, I wasn't reading them in the spring of 2003 when the invasion had indeed took place. Also, there was a despicable "interview" with Blair a few years ago out of which he got pretty much clean as a whistle when it came to the Iraq war, no ruffling the feathers or anything like that.
- unmole 5y ago
  In 2003, they were championing the removal of Saddam by whatever means necessary. "Why war would be justified" ran the cover story: https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2003-02-22 https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2003-02-22

jacquesm 5y ago

Yes, this de-humanizing tactic is despicable.

_nalply 5y ago

You say that some issues of The Economist are propagandist. I am inclined to take this opinion seriously. This said I wonder how you got to this conclusion. What exactly ticked you off? I am asking this because I myself fell for some propaganda and this has shaken me up. I want to learn how to recognize propaganda better.

paganel 5y ago
> What exactly ticked you off? Can't pinpoint to an exact thing, because good propaganda is always diffuse, it kind of encircles you. Were it to be more "straightforward" it would be way easier for the target subject to just reject it, thus denying the propagandist's objective. It is easier for said target subject to say "no" (let's say) to one big thing that is presented to him than to say "no" to lots of smaller things addressed/presented to him, but which smaller things, taken together, have the same "effect" as the one big thing. Back to The Economist, and after that long digression, the signs were in a sort always there. For example when it comes to the China section that it's included in every issue there was always that feeling that nothing that the Chinese government/authorities did was right. If something good was happening in China it was because of individual people, if something bad was happening, it was, of course, the government's fault. And maybe the "government" is the wrong word, because there are lots of people in the West itself who think that the Government is always wrong, too, it was more like "it was the fault of the Chinese regime taken as a whole, of the way it was set up, of its ideological system". But when it came to the US the bad things were never the fault of the government, or if some government-related person was doing something wrong (think the previous US president) then it was the fault of that particular person, not of the entire system per se. Also, said US system, even with its minor faults, was always presented as being capable of self-correction, there was always an intrinsic belief that "things will get better, by definition". No such hope was attached to the Chinese-based system, which was always presented as an ideological dead-end (maybe not in this direct words, but that was the idea). And then there are even smaller things. One that stood up to me was when the previous president was accused of lying, a thing that lots of other US president had done in the past (and will probably do in the future, too) but which I hadn't seen presented as such by this magazine, I mean, not with those words. And not only that, but that lye accusation was written down in one of their columns with a capital L, something like "the big Lye", which is a basic propaganda technique: one is not a mere "traitor", but a big, dangerous, "Traitor", one just cannot think and reason about a nondescript "people", one instead dreams big nationalistic things while thinking about the "People" etc. The war/Russia issue I was talking about had all of the above dialed up to 100.