I’ve been an Economist reader for almost 15 years now and I couldn’t call them totally independent. They do indeed write some great-quality articles but I wouldn’t call them 100% independent. Just last month I happened to read an abominable shill article about Shell. It was actually in their business-related opinion piece called Schumpeter where Shell the company and its CEO were painted in very, very positive light. Of course that the Economist writer did not receive any direct bribe, but it was mentioned in said article that Shell is about to dole out dividends worth tens of billions of pounds until 2023, and you can bet your posterior that the Economist owners and their friends will in fact get a share of that money, so no need to kill the goose laying the golden eggs.

I also have a more conspiratorial theory in reguards to the Economist, as in it is part-owned by the Exor group, owned by the Agnelli family. Now, in these 15 years I’ve only read 3 (three) multi-page articles detailing the not so kosher business dealings of big international companies/conglomerates. One of them was against Warren Buffet’s way of doing some tax-related tricks post 2010 or so, the other two were both against Italian conglomerates, one run by Berlusconi and the other one against the Ferrero group (the maker of famous Nutella among other things). I suspect that both of these articles were related in one way or another to the Exor group, as in them being printed somehow benefited the Agnelli family. Berlusconi actually sued The Economist but as far as I know he lost.