The Economist

The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd and edited in London. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843. While The Economist calls itself a "newspaper", each issue appears on glossy paper, like a newsmagazine. In 2007, it reported an average circulation of just over 1.3 million copies per issue^[4], about half of which are sold in North America.^[5]

The Economist claims it "is not a chronicle of economics."^[6] Rather, it aims "to take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress."^[7] It practices advocacy journalism in taking an editorial stance based on free trade and globalisation. It targets educated readers and boasts an audience containing many influential executives and policy-makers.^[8]

The publication belongs to The Economist Group, half of which is owned by the Financial Times, a subsidiary of Pearson PLC. A group of independent shareholders, including many members of the staff and the Rothschild banking family of England,^[9] owns the rest. A board of trustees formally appoints the editor, who cannot be removed without their permission. In addition, about two-thirds of the seventy-five staff journalists are based in London, despite the global emphasis.^[10]

Features

The Economist's primary focus is world news, politics and business, but it also runs regular sections on science and technology as well as books and the arts. Every two weeks, the publication adds an in-depth special report on a particular issue, business sector or geographical region. Every three months, it publishes a technology report called Technology Quarterly or TQ.

Articles often take a definite editorial stance and almost never carry a byline. Not even the name of the editor (from 2006, John Micklethwait) is printed in the issue. It is a longstanding tradition that an editor's only signed article during his tenure is written on the occasion of his departure from the position. The author of a piece is named in certain circumstances: when notable persons are invited to contribute opinion pieces; when Economist writers compile special reports; and to highlight a potential conflict of interest over a book review. The names of Economist editors and correspondents can be located, however, via the media directory pages of the website.

The publication boasts a tight writing style that seeks to include the maximum amount of information in a limited space.^[11] Atlantic Monthly publisher David G. Bradley described the formula as "a consistent world view expressed, consistently, in tight and engaging prose."^[12]

Since 1995, The Economist has published one obituary every week, of a significant person, not necessarily famous, from any field of endeavour. In addition, The Economist is known for its Big Mac Index, which uses the price of a Big Mac hamburger sold by McDonald's in different countries as an informal measure of the purchasing power of currencies. While whimsical, exchange rates in Western countries have been more likely to adjust to the Big Mac index than vice-versa.^{citation needed}

The publication includes several opinion columns, whose names reflect the topic they concentrate on:

The magazine goes to press on Thursdays, is available online from Thursday between 6 and 7pm GMT, and is available on newsstands in many countries the next day. It is printed at seven sites around the world.

The Economist also produces the annual The World in Year publication. In addition, it sponsors yearly "Innovation Awards", in the categories of bioscience, computing and communications, energy and the environment, social and economic innovation, business-process innovation, consumer products, and a special “no boundaries” category. It also sponsors a writing award.

History

The August 5, 1843 prospectus for the "newspaper," enumerated thirteen areas of coverage that its editors wanted the newspaper to focus on:^[13]

In 1845 during Railway Mania, The Economist changed its name to The Economist, Weekly Commercial Times, Bankers' Gazette, and Railway Monitor. A Political, Literary and General Newspaper.^[14]

Opinions

When the newspaper was founded, the term "economism" denoted what would today be termed "fiscal conservatism" in the United States, or "economic liberalism" in the rest of the world (and historically in the United States as well). The Economist generally supports free markets, globalisation, and free immigration, has been described as neo-liberal^[15] . It also supports social liberalism, including legalized drugs and prostitution. This contrast is attributed to The Economist's roots in classical liberalism, disfavoring government interference in either social or economic activity,^{citation needed} although the newspaper favors a carbon tax to fight global warming.^[16] According to former editor Bill Emmott, "the Economist's philosophy has always been liberal, not conservative."^[17] Individual contributors take diverse views.

The Economist has endorsed both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party in recent British elections, and both Republican and Democratic candidates in the United States. Economist.com puts its stance this way:

The Economist frequently accuses figures and countries of corruption or dishonesty. In recent years, for example, it criticized World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's Prime Minister (who dubbed it The Ecommunist^[19]); Laurent Kabila, the late president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Robert Mugabe, the head of government in Zimbabwe and, recently, Cristina Kirchner, the president of Argentina^[20]. The Economist also called for Bill Clinton's impeachment and later for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation after the emergence of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse.^[21] The Economist initially was a vocal supporter for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, but it has since called the operation "bungled from the start" and criticized the "almost criminal negligence" of the Bush Administration’s handling of the war, while maintaining, as of April 2008, that pulling out in the short term would be irresponsible.^[22] In the 2004 U.S. election, the editors reluctantly backed John Kerry.^[23]^[24] The paper has also supported some left-wing issues^{citation needed} such as progressive taxation, criticizing the U.S. tax model in a recent issue, and seems to support some government regulation on health issues, such as smoking in public, as well as bans on spanking children.^[25] The Economist consistently favors guest worker programs and amnesties, especially in 2006 when one article was titled "Sense not Sensenbrenner."^[26] In addition, it published an "obituary" of God in the last issue of 1999.^[27]

Tone and voice

The Economist does not print by-lines identifying the authors of articles other than surveys and special "by invitation" contribution. The editors say this is necessary because "collective voice and personality matter more than the identities of individual journalists."^[28] Authors refer to themselves within articles as "your correspondent." The newspaper allows a rare exception to prevent conflicts of interest, as when reviewing a book written by an Economist staffer. In addition, retiring editors are permitted a signed farewell article.

The editorial staff enforces a uniform voice throughout its pages,^[29] as if most articles were written by a single author, displaying dry, understated wit, and precise use of language.^[30]^[31] The paper's treatment of economics presumes a working familiarity with fundamental concepts of classical economics. For instance, it does not explain terms like invisible hand, macroeconomics, or demand curve, and may take just six or seven words to explain the theory of comparative advantage. However, articles involving economics do not presume any formal training on the part of the reader and aim to be accessible to the educated layperson. The newspaper usually does not translate short French quotes or phrases, and sentences in Ancient Greek or Latin are not uncommon. It does, however, describe the business or nature of even well-known entities; writing for example^[32], "Goldman Sachs, an investment bank."

Many articles include some witticism; image captions are often humorous and the letters section usually concludes with an odd or light-hearted letter. These efforts at humor have sometimes had a mixed reception. For example, the cover of the September 20, 2003 issue, headlined by a story on the Cancún WTO ministerial meeting, featured a cactus giving the middle finger.^[33] Readers sent both positive and negative letters in response.^[34]

Circulation

Each Economist issue's official date range is from Saturday to the next Friday. In the UK print copies are dispatched late Thursday, for Friday delivery to retail outlets. Elsewhere, retail outlets and subscribers receive their copies on Friday or (more often) Saturday, depending on their location. The Economist Web site posts each week's new content by Friday morning, ahead of the official publication date.

Circulation for the newspaper, audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), was over 1.2 million for the first half of 2007.^[35] Sales inside North America were around 54 percent of the total, with sales in the UK making up 14 percent of the total and continental Europe 19 percent. The Economist claims sales, both by subscription and on newsstands, in over 200 countries. Global sales have doubled since 1997. Of its American readers, two out of three make more than $100,000 a year.^[36]

The Economist once bragged about its limited circulation. In the early 1990s it used the slogan "The Economist - not read by millions of people." "Never in the history of journalism has so much been read for so long by so few," wrote Geoffrey Crowther, a former editor.^[37]

The Economist Newspaper Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Economist Group. The publications of the group include the CFO brand family as well as the annual The World in..., the lifestyle quarterly Intelligent Life, European Voice, and Roll Call, touted "the Newspaper of Capitol Hill". Sir Evelyn de Rothschild was Chairman of the company from 1972 to 1989.

Letters

The Economist frequently receives letters from senior businesspeople, politicians and spokespeople for government departments, Non-Governmental Organisations and lobbies, but well-written or witty responses from anyone are considered, and controversial issues frequently produce a torrent of letters. For example, the survey of Corporate Social Responsibility, published January 2005, produced largely critical letters from Oxfam, the UN World Food Programme, UN Global Compact, the Chairman of BT, an ex-Director of Shell and the UK Institute of Directors.^[38].

Many of the letters criticise its stance on topics such as intelligent design and global warming. After The Economist ran a critique of Amnesty International and human rights in general in its issue dated March 24, 2007, its letters page ran a vibrant reply from Amnesty, as well as several other letters in support of the organisation, including one from the head of the UN Human Rights Commission.^[39] Letters published in the magazine are typically between 150 and 200 words long (and begin with the ritual salutation "Sir"). Most other letters received are published online in "The Inbox".

Censorship

Sections of The Economist criticising authoritarian regimes, such as China, are frequently removed from the newspaper by the authorities in those countries. Despite having its Asia-Pacific office in Singapore, The Economist regularly has difficulties with the Lee dynasty, which has successfully sued it for libel on a number of occasions.^[40]

Robert Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe went further, and imprisoned Andrew Meldrum, The Economist's correspondent there. The government charged him with violating a statute on "publishing untruth" for writing that a woman was decapitated by Mugabe supporters. The decapitation claim was retracted and allegedly fabricated by the woman's husband. The correspondent was later acquitted, only to receive a deportation order.^[42]

Special features

Since July 2007 ^[43], there has also been a complete audio edition of the magazine available 5pm London time on Fridays, the day after the print magazine's publication. A group of British newsreaders records the full text of the magazine in mp3 format, including the extra pages in the UK edition. The weekly 130 MB download is free for subscribers and available for a fee for non-subscribers.

Criticism

Competitors have a stereotype of Economist writers as hacks: overconfident young graduates of elite English universities who lack originality.^[44] James Fallows argued that the newspaper suffers from British class snobbery, pretentiousness, and simplistic argumentation--and that the editorial line is often contradicted by actual news stories.^[45] Andrew Sullivan complained that it uses “marketing genius” to make up for deficiencies in analysis and original reporting, resulting in “a kind of Reader's Digest”^[46] for America’s corporate elite.^[47] (Though criticism in the same 1999 article regarding as-yet-unfulfilled pronouncements by the The Economist that the American stock market was overvalued was proven wrong a few months later when the Internet bubble burst.) He also said that The Economist is editorially constrained because so many scribes graduated from the same school, Magdalen College, Oxford.^[46] The Observer's Stefan Stern wrote that "its writers rarely see a political or economic problem that cannot be solved by the trusted three-card trick of privatization, deregulation and liberalization."^[44]

In addition, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, although he still described himself as a "fan", remarked that "The Economist doesn’t even attempt to do original reporting."^[48] Elsewhere, the publication is said to have an “omniscient tone and pedantry." ^[49] Editorial anonymity, said by the editor to reflect “a collaborative effort,”^[50] is said to hide the youth and inexperience of those writing articles. "The magazine is written by young people pretending to be old people," according to Michael Lewis.^[51] “If American readers got a look at the pimply complexions of their economic gurus, they would cancel their subscriptions in droves."

Editors

References in popular culture

Contents