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Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

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Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#311

Post by Aromasin »

LocutusOfBorges wrote: post #171
cybrexalpha wrote: post #131

I took out an Economist subscription for the first time this year, and I've found it really mixed. Lots of interesting articles, but I'll agree the analysis isn't as good as many other sources I've seen (in my view). What's the bigger blocker for me is the anti-LGBT+ lean. For example the most recent article on trans rights: November 19th - 25th 2022 issue, "Transgressions", page 29 in print. It's not even the insidi…

Seconding this. I cancelled my subscription quite a few years ago in light of the low quality of analysis in the UK section of the paper - it felt like tabloid journalism aimed at people who thought too highly of their class status and level of education to deign to read a real tabloid, yet essentially at the same level of insight, peppered with a few affected rhetorical flourishes conveying an aesthetic of educated…

Just looked her up briefly. The pieces seem to fall in place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Joyce

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#312

Post by ZeroGravitas »

infamia wrote: post #260
wpietri wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that I disagree with some of the right-wing framings, but I don't object on that account. I've never entirely agreed with The Economist, but that hasn't kept me from enjoying it and finding it useful. But the US right has from my perspective gone insane. Take as an example the belief that Trump won the 2020 election. A majority of Republicans (and only Republicans, not independents, Democrats, or people ou…

> But the US right has from my perspective gone insane. Take as an example the belief that Trump won the 2020 election. A majority of Republicans (and only Republicans, not independents, Democrats, or people outside the US) believe that Joe Biden did not legitimately win: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/07/republica ... I think both parties have gone insane and have been there for many years. The US s…

Why do people link to articles in rags like the Washington Examiner via sites that launder the url into something harmless like msn or yahoo?

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/washington-examiner/

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#314

Post by menshiki »

FiberBundle wrote: post #83

The Financial Times is simply excellent. In my opinion it's substantially better than what even The Economist used to be like ~10 years ago. Almost every article has high quality, there's no clickbait content and the coverage of topics is very appropriate for someone who wants to keep informed on geopolitics and international finance. Though it's not as broad as what The Economist covers, you won't find as much cover…

I fully agree. Their China and EU coverage is exceptional. I read FT every single day.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#315

Post by tootie »

jdgoesmarching wrote: post #305
tootie wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they aren't. That's cynical. Jacobin puts it right on their About Us page that they're Socialist news. I've been around a few newsrooms and most of them would riot if they were ever directed to represent an agenda. Even when there was a predominant political leaning.

How many of those newsrooms rioted during the decision to invade Iraq? One doesn’t need to be “directed to represent an agenda” in a competitive news environment, you don’t make it through the door without being a certain type of journalist to begin with. One of the most frustrating obstacles in this conversation is people believing that being in the middle of the Overton Window makes you non-ideological. The idea of…

Rioting would be agenda. Actively reporting the facts when they directly contradict the political mainstream is good journalism. That mostly happened in the high brow press with a few notable exceptions. As someone who primarily read the NY Times in the early 2000s I was pretty well convinced the cassus belli in Iraq was spurious. Judith Miller notwithstanding. They also published the infamous Yellow cake op ed.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#316

Post by Daniel_92 »

Just read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. There's a beautiful metanarrative in there about first the "thought leaders" and then eventually the artists, and then eventually the media declining as they grovel and collectively are unwilling to check each other basically in the name of political correctness(I won't spoil it beyond that, great book). "A society gets the military it deserves" -TR Fehrenbach, This Kind of War. The same is true of the media. I agree with what you said on the Economist. Probably 4-6 years ago, I saw the same thing happen with the Atlantic. Very sad. I use HN because it pulls from so many sources. Ill still enjoy stuff from the Econ here and there. 2 pieces of advice: Diversify your sources, and second, develop a system of personal morality. Too few people in our society have one of those... which means too few people who are philosophers have one, and therefore too few artists, and too few journalists. And eventually, people like you and me can recognize that not only is the bar low.... someone stole the bar and is chasing the contestants around with it beating them at random. Cheers.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#318

Post by wpietri »

Manuel_D wrote: post #266
wpietri wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not a more reputable source. The XKCD thing is a graph of highly regarded and more rigorous social science work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOMINATE_(scaling_method) Further, I think the Pew stuff is flawed in a number of ways. One, it comes after the Reagan era, missing a time DW-NOMINATE shows as important to right-wing polarization. Two, it doesn't include the Trump era, when polarization hugely spiked.…

DW-NOMINATE didn't create the buckets "far-left", "left", etc. DW-NOMINATE is just a method of marking plots on a graph [1]. The categories of far-left, left, etc. come from drawing boundaries on that graph and giving everyone inside that region a label. Where to draw these boundaries hugely influences the results. Give someone else task of defining the boundaries and you can easily achieve the completely opposite re…

I think it's pretty funny you're acting like looking at the unrandom sample of elected officials is worse than grabbing assorted randos when trying to study politics. It's even funnier that you're taking people's off-the-cuff opinions given to a stranger stranger more seriously than you're taking the actual political behavior of passing laws. Believe what you like, I suppose, but I have a hard time taking you seriously here.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to The Economist?

#319

Post by Manuel_D »

wpietri wrote: post #318
Manuel_D wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DW-NOMINATE didn't create the buckets "far-left", "left", etc. DW-NOMINATE is just a method of marking plots on a graph [1]. The categories of far-left, left, etc. come from drawing boundaries on that graph and giving everyone inside that region a label. Where to draw these boundaries hugely influences the results. Give someone else task of defining the boundaries and you can easily achieve the completely opposite re…

I think it's pretty funny you're acting like looking at the unrandom sample of elected officials is worse than grabbing assorted randos when trying to study politics. It's even funnier that you're taking people's off-the-cuff opinions given to a stranger stranger more seriously than you're taking the actual political behavior of passing laws. Believe what you like, I suppose, but I have a hard time taking you serious…

Pew is one of, if not the most respected polling organization in the US. By comparison, that XKCD chart is all just someone drawing boundaries on a chart. Just make the far left zone larger and shrink the far-right zone and voila you have the opposite result.
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