The Economist is definitely a high-brow, low-fluff, high-density publication. I love it. Articles are usually short enough that you can get through them in a just a minute and they have a good graphics department that makes clear, readable graphs that actually provide an added value instead of filling in some empty space. Shows that it is possible to stick to the message.

For political reporting it seems like Politico is sticking to the same formula (at least Politico.eu), which explains their popularity.