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How The Economist covers the world

medium.economist.com

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Re: How The Economist covers the world

#11

Post by diminish »

In the age of Medium and myriad kinds of blogging platforms and bloggers and Twitter people to follow I see less need for that type of "opinion journalism".

For most events in the world within minutes I m able to follow local people tweeting or writing in their newspapers what's happening.

I rather feel Economist has an economic and political target remaining from the days of the faded British Empire to comment about everything from Commonwealth and ex-British Empire countries .

It's usually to promote a certain angle and push a position rather than objectively investigate.

This "ad" is trying to benefit from post-Trump rise in newspaper subscriptions with a "let's help independent media" wave. Which is a good attempt.

Re: How The Economist covers the world

#12

Post by coldtea »

ojbyrne wrote: post #7

I've always found the answer to this to be - thinly, superficially, and with poor dead prose. I've never understood how they managed to cultivate the image they seem to have created.

It's simple: their audience is not the most sophisticated in international affairs, just a step up from the average newspaper or TV coverage.

Now, THIS is real reporting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14153346

Re: How The Economist covers the world

#13

Post by coldtea »

simonh wrote: post #9
samer66 wrote: post #5

This is a self propaganda piece from a magazine that has been a mixed bag, decent and dumb journalism:" The Economist magazine is getting dumber and dumber: it unearthed "evidence" of Russian intervention in Reagan's election "In November 1984 the Kremlin tried to stop Ronald Reagan from being re-elected. As part of its active-measures programme, Moscow promoted the slogan “Reagan Means War!” To discredit him, Russia…

No, they did not say that those doing what Russia wanted done were necessarily doing it 'at Russia's bidding'. Yes America does also sometimes try to influence political discourse in other countries too, did TE say otherwise? Finally, are you claiming that Russia does not try to influence politics in other countries? The point is, what methods are used and are they legitimate.

>Yes America does also sometimes try to influence political discourse in other countries too, did TE say otherwise?

No, just let theirs readers get to that impression by themselves, by not covering those attempts as much.

>Finally, are you claiming that Russia does not try to influence politics in other countries?

Not that much, mostly to their neighbors, and not very successfully even there (e.g. how most of their periphery is not suffocating them with NATO allies).

Re: How The Economist covers the world

#14

Post by slyall »

diminish wrote: post #11

In the age of Medium and myriad kinds of blogging platforms and bloggers and Twitter people to follow I see less need for that type of "opinion journalism". For most events in the world within minutes I m able to follow local people tweeting or writing in their newspapers what's happening. I rather feel Economist has an economic and political target remaining from the days of the faded British Empire to comment about…

> For most events in the world within minutes I m able to follow local people tweeting or writing in their newspapers what's happening.

Like it says in the article they are not just writing about the stories that are happening "this minute". They are writing about a range of other stuff, ie:

But each week we try to give them a selection of things that they didn’t know that they didn’t know. An example of this would be the recent piece we ran on the spread of unfamiliar grains. You can also look at stories we’ve done on the evolution of arranged marriage, on how to train good teachers or on how best to integrate autistic people into the workplace. These are stories about big ideas and big trends that readers might not know about

Re: How The Economist covers the world

#15

Post by shasheene »

I'd like to subscribe to The Economist, but a 12-month digital-only subscription costs US$285 from Australia, nearly double the US figure, which I can't yet justify as a relatively casual reader.

The leaky paywall (and convenient scraped ePub versions for eReaders) makes it even easier to not contribute to funding quality journalism. If I could choose a dollar amount, I'd happily donate US$75/year recurring for what I'm currently paying $0/year for.

Re: How The Economist covers the world

#16

Post by rahimnathwani »

shasheene wrote: post #15

I'd like to subscribe to The Economist, but a 12-month digital-only subscription costs US$285 from Australia, nearly double the US figure, which I can't yet justify as a relatively casual reader. The leaky paywall (and convenient scraped ePub versions for eReaders) makes it even easier to not contribute to funding quality journalism. If I could choose a dollar amount, I'd happily donate US$75/year recurring for what…

You can get a digital subscription for 160 USD per year: http://www.student-subscription-service.co.uk/magazine-the-e...

Re: How The Economist covers the world

#17

Post by nindalf »

coldtea wrote: post #12
ojbyrne wrote: post #7

I've always found the answer to this to be - thinly, superficially, and with poor dead prose. I've never understood how they managed to cultivate the image they seem to have created.

It's simple: their audience is not the most sophisticated in international affairs, just a step up from the average newspaper or TV coverage. Now, THIS is real reporting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14153346

I've been reading the Economist for more than a decade and other publications as well in that time. They do an excellent job in my opinion of covering a variety of topics. Obviously reading specialized publications of each industry would give you a better idea, but a broad overview is great too.

For example, here's an article from 2011, titled "Print me a Stradivarius" [1]. If you were already familiar with 3D printing, the article might have struck you as elementary. But the vast majority of people don't work in tech, especially not in hardware tech. Such people almost certainly would not have heard of 3D printing in 2011, and learning about this would have been very valuable.

What I appreciate about the Economist is their restraint in covering current topics. A lot of their coverage is in-depth and subjects which _aren't_ topical. They aren't without flaws, but I've learnt a lot over the last decade by reading the Economist.

[1] - http://www.economist.com/node/18114327

Side note, the last time I criticised a pithy, poorly researched put down by you, I was told off by a moderator. I wonder if someone could defend this comment as somehow adding value to this discussion.

Re: How The Economist covers the world

#18

Post by robbiep »

shasheene wrote: post #15

I'd like to subscribe to The Economist, but a 12-month digital-only subscription costs US$285 from Australia, nearly double the US figure, which I can't yet justify as a relatively casual reader. The leaky paywall (and convenient scraped ePub versions for eReaders) makes it even easier to not contribute to funding quality journalism. If I could choose a dollar amount, I'd happily donate US$75/year recurring for what…

Go halvsies with someone. I split with my Dad (He gets the paper copy and I get digital). Although I'm still on a student subscription and we go 2 years at a time

Re: How The Economist covers the world

#19

Post by tomjen3 »

shasheene wrote: post #15

I'd like to subscribe to The Economist, but a 12-month digital-only subscription costs US$285 from Australia, nearly double the US figure, which I can't yet justify as a relatively casual reader. The leaky paywall (and convenient scraped ePub versions for eReaders) makes it even easier to not contribute to funding quality journalism. If I could choose a dollar amount, I'd happily donate US$75/year recurring for what…

And if you do subscribe you have to call them to cancel. You can subscribe on their website, but they only unsubscribe through a phone line.

I managed to get unsubscribed by hurling abuse at their support staff, but I still think it should be considered fraud.

Re: How The Economist covers the world

#20

Post by simonh »

nindalf wrote: post #17
coldtea wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simple: their audience is not the most sophisticated in international affairs, just a step up from the average newspaper or TV coverage. Now, THIS is real reporting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14153346

I've been reading the Economist for more than a decade and other publications as well in that time. They do an excellent job in my opinion of covering a variety of topics. Obviously reading specialized publications of each industry would give you a better idea, but a broad overview is great too. For example, here's an article from 2011, titled "Print me a Stradivarius" [1]. If you were already familiar with 3D printi…

Their coverage in the run-up to the financial crisis was excellent. When it hit the fan I knew exactly what a credit default swap was, what subprime mortgages were and why they were both possible sources of risk in the financial system and what a liquidity crisis was because TE had been covering them for years. By no means am I saying the predicted the crisis, but their coverage of the issues enabled me to have a pretty clear picture of what was happening and why.
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