This but for every major "serious" publication

+1 on C. I actually started reading it back to front and have been having much more fun.

If you’re a left leaning voter the Speccie is almost _never_ going to have an article for you.

And the “almost” is simply because often the articles are very well written and a pleasure to read even when the actual topic and argument are deeply deranged. Amazingly this was especially true when Boris was the editor!

Chomsky said it was the only newspaper that told the truth.

Yes.

The pink is also wrong more often than not when they're talking about non-European issues.

When they talk about Europe they lie.

Subtle difference.

The thing with the Economist is that they have a style that’s like an erudite version of the old Time magazine — that is stories written to say what the editors want. Except the economist is way more dogmatic.

I used to read it regularly. I can’t imagine anyone looking to them for predictions, as even a casual reader could probably outline the magazine’s views on most any topic. Let me skim 4-5 recent issues, and I could probably replicate anything they would predict with like 85% accuracy!

I will say that my favorite part of the magazine was the wacky ads for big shots working for African countries, various UN things, NGOs, etc.

Yep. That's why predicting the future of a system you're a part of is sometimes literally impossible; it boils, fundamentally, to the fact that logical negation doesn't have a fixed point.

A major reason why the new Fed chair is refusing to provide forward guidance, in a major departure from all(?) previous Fed chairs and will likely require textbooks to be rewritten.

I don’t think The Economist has that kind of power. More likely that when they make covers like these every normie feels that way and it’s going the other way soon, as it has exhausted every buyer or seller and it has reached the ends of your earth and your Mom and Dad even feel that way.

https://www.readtrung.com/p/the-economist-cover-curse-explai...

Already asked and answered.

Yes.

I think that's the wrong way to look at it. They do have skin in the game, in the sense that their readers wouldn't want to pay for a newspaper that is consistently wrong. And, even if they don't, it doesn't mean that it's not valuable

In theory, their reputation which is the basis for maintaining their subscriber base and hence $$$

Which makes the headline quite clever in this case, since people will assume that means they aren't wrong, when in fact it means they aren't _always_ wrong.

https://medium.com/luminasticity/does-betteridges-law-still-...

It seems it may also be used for really embarrassing things that will make powerful people mad if you just state them outright so it is necessary to state it as a question when you know the answer is yes.

Of course any yes or no question can be answered "no" but Betteridge, as we know, means a factually correct answer, and so there are these edge cases where the question mark is used for slightly different reasons than the law assumes and can be answered "yes".

The Economist has this to say about their ownership structure and editorial independence:

The Economist is part of The Economist Group, a private company with a special ownership structure designed to preserve editorial independence. Its shareholders date back more than a century, and include great names in British business, such as the Sainsburys, Cadburys and Schroders. Other shareholders today include funds owned by the Agnelli and Rothschild families. Many staff of The Economist Group also own shares, which are privately traded twice a year.

The company’s constitution does not permit any individual or group to gain a majority shareholding, and no shareholder can exercise more than 20% of voting rights. The editor is appointed by trustees, who are independent of commercial, political and proprietorial influences. This structure ensures that The Economist can take an independent view of the world—free to challenge conventional thinking and concentrations of power. Its role is to inform, not to serve vested interests.

https://myaccount.economist.com/s/article/Who-owns-The-Econo...

I’d be surprised if they knew what a brier score was

Agreed. Does someone have a summary of the article?

Sorry, who are you exactly to give people orders?

I don’t know what person reads The Economist to learn about trans topics (whatever you mean by that)

yeah imagine thinking biden was too old and infirm

What is “both sides” about that article?

Just because Fox News crowed about it doesn’t mean it’s bad journalism. Arguably toeing the party line is what resulted in Democrats being in that situation (fielding a weaker candidate against Trump) in the first place.

For me personally, seeing the phrase "both sides" used pejoratively is a red flag telling me I don't need to read any further.

When people disagree about something, hearing from both sides is important. Can this ideal of openmindedness be cynically abused by strawmanning one side while steelmanning the other? Yes, but in that case the appropriate response is to criticise the specific ways that one or both sides were misrepresented -- which is also the appropriate response to a piece that only presents one side, and does it badly. Muttering about "both sides" never adds anything to an argument. All it does is signal a deep commitment to remaining entrenched in your current position.

Wait, what? People were offended by that? It seemed an apt cover in light of the situation.

For those unaware, the economist ran this [1] image after Biden’s historically disastrous debate in ‘24 (as a result of Biden’s age based senility being on full display after months of party and media complicity).

[1] https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/07/04/why-biden-must-...

> [...] the field from which it draws its name [...]

The Economist was founded in 1843 and draws its name from a then-current term for something like a 'free-trade liberal' (with perhaps a fiscal conservative bend). Not the modern day field of economics.

Their big beef at the time of founding was a fight against the Corn Laws, a protectionist tariff against importing grain into Britain.