Journalists at The Economist speak, half-jokingly, of a mythical, perfect sentence for the news and business weekly. It is some version of this:
“Wrong.”
That implies, said Chris Anderson, who worked there for seven years in the 1990s, and Bill Emmott, who edited it until 2006, that the conventional wisdom has been outlined in a preamble. It further assumes that the writer has the intellectual heft to dismiss it in a single word. And that the subsequent paragraphs will go on to outline a more astute, nuanced argument.
Clive Crook, who was with the publication for 23 years until 2005, said he had heard another tongue-in-cheek characterization of The Economist’s style: “simplify, then exaggerate.”
That distinctive voice, often featuring acerbic British understatement — a recent article described the alleged behavior of a British lord as “gadding about with prostitutes” — runs through The Economist’s blend of pithy news summaries, deeply reported analysis and quirky asides.
Widely viewed as a magazine, it nevertheless calls itself a newspaper. It has no bylines. It has a dedicated following for its idiosyncratic photo captions (“You’re the Yuan that I want”). Its goal, outlined in a kind of mission statement on its Web site, is to “take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress.”
Either because of, or in spite of, these eccentricities, The Economist, now poised for a change in ownership, occupies a widely envied position.
It has, perhaps fittingly for an unabashed supporter of free markets, been consistently profitable for decades. The Economist Group made about US$93 million for the year that ended March 31, on revenue of more than US$500 million, according to its annual report.
Though it is privately held, the company releases its financial records each spring. The Economist’s circulation has increased to about 1.6 million this year from about 1 million in 2006. It largely reaches the kind of affluent, educated people who travel to international conferences on private jets and its many admirers include former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Karl Marx, on the other hand, dismissed it as “the European organ of the aristocracy of finance.”
The writer James Fallows described it as a purveyor of “smarty-pants English attitudes on our shores,” revered strictly as a fashion accessory for those who seek to appear erudite and worldly.
The politics and culture writer Andrew Sullivan largely agreed. He called it “a kind of Reader’s Digest for the upper classes.”
The impending ownership change is unlikely to settle the debate. A 50 percent stake in The Economist Group, which includes CQ Roll Call, has been put up for sale by the education company Pearson, which recently sold the Financial Times to Nikkei of Japan as part of an effort to streamline its businesses.
Pearson is negotiating, according to two people briefed on the matter, with the publication’s current shareholders — including Exor, the investment company controlled by the Agnelli family, which has declared its interest publicly.
SHIELDED SALE
Others who had coveted the publication, including Bloomberg, have not been mentioned as contenders, perhaps because the company has a complex trust system that essentially ensures it cannot be taken over by an owner keen to impose his or her whims.
The Economist Group has four kinds of shares: Ordinary ones, for employees, past employees and founding members of the company. “A” shares, held by illustrious names like the Cadburys, Rothschilds and Schroders. “B” shares, which represent about half, are the ones for sale. And trust shares, which control transfer of “A” and “B” shares and are held by trustees, including the Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, who are responsible for ensuring “the continued independence of the ownership of the company and the editorial independence of The Economist.”
It has, in other words, carefully shielded itself from the free market forces it so vociferously defends. (Emmott argued that the position was consistent, as The Economist has no objection to private companies managing themselves as they see fit.)
The newspaper, founded in 1843, is put together in offices in the heart of London, a short stroll from the Ritz and a slightly longer walk from Buckingham Palace. The newsroom staff declined to move to Canary Wharf, a modern office development favored by financial firms, when its business staff did. Journalists usually either stay for a short period and find The Economist is not for them, or for years, even decades, Crook said.
DEBATE CULTURE
Its culture, said Anderson, who went on to edit Wired magazine, is based on debate. During his tenure, every Monday morning the staff would gather in the editor’s office, to figure out, by means of argument, the leader articles that would form the backbone of the next issue.
“It was the classic Oxford debating society style,” he said. “I’ve never seen more of an intellectual meritocracy. It was a classic example of sink or swim. How did people end up with The Economist voice? That’s it right there.”
It has also been shaped, said Crook, who rose to deputy editor, by the lack of bylines.
“There is a genuine sense that we’re all in it together,” he said.
Writers edit and editors write, which makes each considerate of the other. And writers can contribute on unexpected subjects — a recent article, headlined “Girlfriend in a Conga,” focused on the popularity of the singer Morrissey in Mexico — because readers do not associate their names with one topic.
It appeals so widely, Emmott suggested, because it has responded to the spread of the English language, the end of the Cold War, the rise of China and other world economies, all multiplied by the effects of the Internet.
It has become, he said “the house magazine of globalization.”
Crook suggested that economy of expression might be the key.
“The main thing” he said, “is not to waste the readers’ time.”
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Ursula K. le Guin in The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas proposed a thought experiment of a utopian city whose existence depended on one child held captive in a dungeon. When taken to extremes, Le Guin suggests, utilitarian logic violates some of our deepest moral intuitions. Even the greatest social goods — peace, harmony and prosperity — are not worth the sacrifice of an innocent person. Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), since leaving office, has lived an odyssey that has brought him to lows like Le Guin’s dungeon. From late 2008 to 2015 he was imprisoned, much of this