It's certainly not only interested in solutions that can be implemented. It's interested in solutions that enforce the free market, and it paints non-market solutions as infeasible, even though they often work and are implementable. But this is invisible ideology and very easy to mistake for pragmatism, because a pure pragmatist will certainly appreciate many market solutions.
The final synthesis is not after having treated both sides. It's after having treated two sides, which are editorially chosen.
As far as dialectics it would be much more interesting if they could dialectically analyze their own internal contradictions between democracy and interventionist realpolitik, or between free-market fundamentalism and concern about externalities. But it doesn't really grapple with those, which is a sign that it's only applying dialectical thinking in convenient ways.
In any case, the Economist is not any worse than any other mainstream publication. Often they do pretty good reporting. But you absolutely must not rely on it solely especially for foreign reporting where you don't have bearings.
They're not perfect, but it sure beats NYT.
If you want the optimal news coverage without needing to read a million sources - The Economist, Financial Times, WSJ and The Guardian.
They are not as forthcoming with their biases as it seems. They mainly set up their ideological oppositions as conservatives, but they in fact have a lot in common with them. This is especially true for foreign relations.
I'd be happy to see examples of articles that go against the Economists' editorial agenda in profound ways and that pertain to foreign policy.
If you want news coverage that is any good at all and you care about foreign affairs you absolutely have to include at least one and preferably two non-anglophone or non-western sources that preferably oppose each other.
A good barometer I have for journals as far as foreign policy is their coverage of the Iraq War before it began. As far as I can see the Economist published almost nothing opposing it, limiting themselves to surface-level reporting of anti-war arguments in the sole goal of defeating them.
I don't understand why you would limit yourself, if you had to choose 4 sources, to 4 centrist anglophone sources. It seems like a very biased media diet.
And how can 4 "centrist" sources be "very biased"? Isn't it literally the opposite?
Most major news sources in the world report in English too. So you can indeed read news from sources that aren't from culturally similar anglophone countries and instead are from anywhere in the world.
No, centrism isn’t the opposite of bias.
Centrism is a position toward which there can bias of any strength. Position of bias on a left/right (or any other ideological) axis and strength of bias or two orthogonal, continuous dimensions.
But in practice "centrist" news sources are far more likely to present multiple points of view -- e.g. a left and right one -- while "left" and "right" news sources generally do not.
But at a deeper level, centrism isn't really an ideology at all, in the way the left and right can be. You can be a hard-core leftist or you can be a hard-core conservative, but the idea of a "hard-core centrist" doesn't really exist.
So I'd argue centrism can be the opposite of bias in a very real way. It's about dropping bias towards ideologies, and treating issues in a practical balanced way.
No, in practice less strongly biased sources are more likely to present multiple points of view. Now, the same amount of variation can seem more diverse when you tend to bucket things into “left/right” binary categories, if the center of variation is near the point where you draw the line between buckets.
But that's an artifact of forcing things into binary buckets making a centrist outlet providing center-left to center-right views look more diverse than a right-wing publication providing center-right to far-right views.
Their latest issue literally has a massive article against vaccine nationalism. Their opposition to breaking of the Iranian deal.
> A good barometer I have for journals as far as foreign policy is their coverage of the Iraq War before it began
That's very arbitrary, considering that 18 years have passed. The Economist has changed hands and most of its staff.
> 4 centrist anglophone sources
4 sources that aren't radical, have clear motivation behind them. Money makes people write in a particular way, that is easy to gauge.
Also - why would I read insane crap on either side, my job isn't to read news all day.
Also, not specific enough. Which Iraq war? The one in 2000's? 90s? 80s?
>4 sources that aren't radical, have clear motivation behind them. Money makes people write in a particular way, that is easy to gauge.
I don't understand what you're saying here. Just because they have a bias that is for the status quo doesn't mean they are more or less right. As far as I'm concerned all I'm getting from this is "I agree with this ideological bias and I don't want to read anything else"
Anyways, it's your decision to subscribe to a biased news diet. You're not any better because of which bias you choose than someone who only reads Newsmax or CNN.
If your assessment is that anything that's not from the same ideology as these four sources is "insane crap", which it isn't, good points are being made by people of all political persuasions, then it's clear that you have created your own media echo chamber.
That said, the editorial stance of the Economist comes through extremely clearly in their writings and they are unabashedly economically liberal.
Your characterization of NYT as being less ideologically diverse really doesn't match my experience.
Your list is incredibly West focused and honestly not that ideologically diverse, with the Guardian I guess supposed to take the "left" position.
NYT has lost my subscription, after they just straight up started running exaggerated stories.
> Your list is incredibly West focused
I read in 4 languages, would you like some news sources in Russian, Lithuanian or Italian?
There's an adage in math modeling/statistics: all models are wrong, but some are useful.
Here, all newspapers are biased, but some are useful.
Unless there is some link between calculus and socialism that I have yet to discover
The people who recommend against those medias already believe of themselves that they are better informed and able to recognize the bias. If they are that critical, then they should have no troubles consuming biased and ideological media, and they shouldn't assume without further evidence that others don't have the same ability.
Especially in this case it's weird, because the journal is called The Economist. Obviously you'd expect some bias pro economy there.
I'm arguing against the GP that said that it's okay to read only the Economist. It's not okay to read only a single source. You can be as critical as you want but if you no longer have any bearings on a subject you're being led by the nose.
Also, "pro-economy bias" is pretty vague. There are many ways one could be biased in a way so as to focus on a better economy, and they can be radically different.
I think this is perhaps misguided. It's not fair to the economist to compare an article on, eg. politics in Brazil, against the nuanced understanding that a Brazilian citizen would have, because most people from North American with no other ties to Brazil would have no frame of reference.
In other words, the choice is not, a simplified version of the issues vs a nuanced understanding, it's a simplified understanding of the issue vs none at all.
Whenever the Economist published an article on Brazilian politics, it was generally far superior and far more insightful than anything in the local press. Which genuinely surprised me.
Remember -- most local news sources, whether in the US or Brazil, aren't nuanced at all. They're surface-level and sensationalistic.
But while Brazil has a home-grown news equivalent of Time ("Veja"), as well as USA Today (O Globo) it simply doesn't have any home-grown news source at the level of sophistication of the Economist, not even for domestic news.
I find The Globe & Mail and MacLeans quite solid when it comes to news coverage.
And even non-local sources may still bring some enlightenment. If you were trying to understand Brazilian politics but couldn't read any Brazilian sources, it would still be much better to read Anglo, European and, say, Middle Eastern reporting and then consider the differences in reporting and how they might be linked to their worldview.
Besides, oftentimes a simplistic and biased understanding whose inaccuracy is not understood is much worse than no understanding at all. At least in the second case you are aware of your ignorance and will probably be more weary of rash action.
It used to be a much better magazine.
Arguing that Economist is bad, because it was complex to cancel your subscription (I see a massive button on my account page) is like arguing that a restaurant is bad, because they don't accept gold coins as payment.
The issues come weekly with really interesting topical stories, so I always add them to my reading todo list, but they just pile up so fast.
This past year and 1/2 of WFH life meant, I now have about 50 issues to go through LOL.
Sorry for the jab, but I think this is our current political situation in a nutshell - surface level, emotional takes are the primary way people engage in news and thus politics. It's hard to engage deeply, but it's required in order to build your own narrative, rather than just take on someone else's.
Mostly i feel more articles coming up that are worded in a way to convince the reader or a certain point without any data. This is something i never really noticed in the past.
It might just be me though.
I stopped reading it about 10 years ago for a few reasons. During the housing crisis the coverage wasn't as deep as it should have been and I would read articles that were nothing more than "nationalizing banks is bad" without explaining why.
Their coverage of US politics was also laughably bad. During the push to pass the ACA they overstated the GOP's position and willingness to deal. I used to get it from a library a few towns over so I would be 3-4 weeks behind. One time I was reading an article where Charles Grassley was being made out to be principled and respected and I'm laughing because he had recently endorsed the death panel nonsense.
I really, really wish I could recommend the WSJ, however they declined pretty heavily after Murdoch bought them. The number of long form articles declined and I was seeing less journalism and more ideological fluff in the non-editorial sections.
It's an English magazine that's not even 'News'.
Also this: "During the push to pass the ACA they overstated the GOP's position and willingness to deal." Is a pretty petty reason to not read something. Also, they could have been right.
There are better reasons not to read the Economist.
No, they were proven to have been wrong. I provided a specific example of their analysis being wrong, one which you did not address. The ACA passed along party lines after almost a year of deliberation. The GOP spent the subsequent decade running on "repeal and replace" only to get seriously close once. There are multiple other examples (McConnell declaring the goal of making Obama a one term president, refusing to conduct hearings to confirm Garland to the SC after recommending him, etc.) of where the GOP was acting in bad faith, which is also what you are doing here.
I agree its a well put together publication, but a socialist (for instance) would argue it is deeply ideological.
Unlike many "well renowned sources" (ahem... NYT)
I listen to their articles and they often repeat this.
Literally typing this into Google would have provided you with the link to their website.
https://www.economist.com/news/2020/06/19/frequently-asked-q...
Now, what is a classically liberal bias, concretely, as far as international affairs are concerned?
As far as free trade, that's difficult to apply to most situations.
Conservativism is a relative position, but you can't be a conservative liberal.
Economist literally had a massive article what is conservativism. And - SPOILER - UK Torries used to be conservative, while GOP has been reactionary/populist for a while now.
As a relative politico-economic position, conservative is “defense of the position of status quo elites”.
In a society with a capitalist (including most modern mixed) economy, “conservative” in the relative sense is always economically liberal, because the status quo elites in a capitalist society are those empowered by and dependent on economic liberalism for their position.
(“Classical conservativism” is not relative, and is defined relative to the pre-capitalist status quo, and is specifically tends to be about the defense of the titled, landed aristocracy. But, because that is no longer an established elite, there's not a lot of classical conservatism left to defend.)
Nowhere I claimed that you cannot be economically liberal. You intentionally removed context out of my claim that conservatives will use economic policy to make an ad hominem attack.
Congratulations on coming out a "winner".
That's a very narrow understanding of conservativism.
> “conservative” in the relative sense is always economically liberal
Conservatives have often taken steps to restrict market forces, that forced radical changes. So no - you cannot generalize conservativism to "economically liberal".
But rather than listening to me, feel free to read up a scholarly article.
...which amounts to “lots of people have used it lots of conflicting ways, some even denying it has meaning.” Which, as someone with a political science degree with cobsiderable exposure to both political philosophy and more common political dialogue, I’m well aware of. If you accept that whole space of use and non-use, the upthread claim that you can’t be a conservative and an economic liberal at the same time is more, not less, ridiculous, so perhaps you posted your response one comment two far down the thread?
I also don't think that being economically liberal means letting the market destroy itself or push large societal changes.
You definitely can be a conservative liberal. The American society by and large is founded on liberal principles. All you have to do to be a conservative liberal is to stick to 18th-19th century liberalism, in being a so-called "classical liberal".
I agree that the GOP is reactionary more than conservative.
The term classical liberal exists specifically, because conservative liberal creates a massive ambiguity.
And getting back to The Economist - they aren't conservative at all. It's a modern liberal magazine, that routinely promotes wealth redistribution and support for the poor.
To the point that they had a whole issue dedicated to the death of modern conservativism and how their editorial policy is classic liberal.
"Classical liberal" and "conservative" are not necessarily at odds. "Liberal" in the sense that you are using it is a political philosophy, conservative is just a slot to fill in.
Their articles mostly follow a dialectical format -- thesis, antithesis, synthesis, with about a third of the article spent on each one. I don't know of any other publication whose house style is so rigorous in this.
It's also highly editorialized, but very open and transparent about the positions it takes -- any bias they have is in the open, but is in the final synthesis after they've treated both sides.
It also doesn't fall neatly into any liberal/conservative divide. It tends to be socially progressive yet only interested in solutions that can be practically implemented, pro-free market but deeply concerned about externalities and the environment, pro-democracy but with hard-headed realpolitik.
Plus probably half of what each weekly issue covers is news you won't find in any other American publication, at least -- it's a global publication and one of the best ways to simply learn about the entire world's political and economic news.