Alternatives to The Economist

As most of you probably know, I've been a regular reader of The Economist for a number of years; I currently have a subscription and read it cover-to-cover every week (okay, skipping some of the arts section). In general I enjoy their coverage, but in recent months I've become less and less enamored. I've found that I can almost always predict their editorial stance on a given issue, and find their coverage on long-running stories to be repetitive. Furthermore, I've noticed more and more that their reportage is often sloppy when it comes to important salient facts. They also get lazy with their editorial stances, waving away reasonable objections on flimsy grounds (and discarding alternatives they don't like on an equally iffy basis). It's not that I think they're often wrong in their positions, it's just that their argumentation doesn't actually inform me, which is why I read their magazine. (It also doesn't help that the paper is frustratingly pig-headed about some of its pet beliefs, such as the infallibility of the UK Tories. I don't disagree that Labour and Lib Dems have their own issues, but the editorial line verges on absurdly fawning.)

That being said, I like reading it for a number of reasons; other than the usual daily scan through the news and reading whatever long form pieces I stumble across or get forwarded, The Economist is my main source of media consumption. I was hoping to pick all of your brains about a reasonable alternative or group of alternatives that would supplant my subscription. I'm interested in the following:

1) Weekly issues. I think that daily is just too much (I'm not going to start reading WSJ cover to cover) and monthly is too little (say, The Atlantic). I'm interested in current news and analysis without overwhelming the SNR with lots of daily updates of little significance.

2) Excellent global coverage. I want something that at least pays lip service to covering major events in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Sure, The Economist isn't perfect on this score, but at least they make an effort in principle.

3) Reasonable coverage of finance and business stories. I don't just want politics news.

4) Some sort of interesting editorial line or analysis; dry reporting of facts isn't what I'm looking for, I'd like policy recommendations and thoughtful discussion.

5) A high caliber of writing; something enjoyable to read that doesn't veer into infographics at the expense of a reasonably sized, well-written story.

I'm happy to replace the Economist with a mix of other publications, but I'd like the total reading load to be roughly the same. I'd also like to keep my yearly budget under about $200.

Any suggestions? Something like Bloomberg Businessweek would probably handle the finance/business side of things, but that leaves news and analysis wide open. I find the likes of Time and Newsweek to be unpalatable and simple-minded, so they're out. Most of the other suggestions I've seen (a la The New Yorker) are excellent publications but spend too much time on culture and too little on news. I'm concerned that something like Foreign Affairs is a little too focused on US foreign policy and not a broader, global approach (let alone covering domestic issues).

Let me know what you guys think! I'd love thoughtful or creative suggestions.

Well, what does inform you, wiggin? And what do you consider "news" reports? Should you have to pay $200/year to be informed? What does that say for folks who can barely keep up with rent?


Here's a good "alternative" to The Economist: stop telling kids they can ONLY get ahead by getting a (heavily subsidized) college/university education. Teach kids that STEM can be important and valuable, but it's not an end-all or be-all endeavor.

Jeez, GGT, seriously? Can you just leave one goddamned thread alone?

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Originally Posted by wiggin

Jeez, GGT, seriously? Can you just leave one goddamned thread alone?

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Nope. If you post, I'll reply. Is there something wrong with that?

I was into foreign affairs magazine in afganistan. Had a journal format though.

Agreed on the Economist. It's good for very general knowledge about places that are generally not covered by the US newspapers (i.e. anywhere outside of the West and where there are American troops) and it's certainly excellent on the financial (not economics) portion. But the political details are too editorialish, to the point where it's hard to pinpoint where fact ends and opinion starts. It's also not too good on providing evidence (see previous point). Their editorial stories are total garbage (i.e. their political endorsement are totally inconsistent with their underlying philosophy and they just come up with flimsy illiberal/non-liberal reasons for backing the candidates they like, which happen to be left-wing far too often), but those can be easily ignored.

Have you tried Foreign Policy? It has its own problems, but it tends to have more interesting and informative stories than the Economist. You should also consider Brookings and International Crisis Group for more detailed coverage (that nevertheless is very accessible). These covers your issues 2-5, though not 1.

Frankly, I find that the only way to really be informed about events on the ground is to read newspapers from the countries that you want to know more about (or from newspapers from their colonial masters :o ). Even the best generalalist publications wait until crises before they write about non-Western countries.

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Originally Posted by GGT

Nope. If you post, I'll reply. Is there something wrong with that?

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When someone asks for assistance, it's generally considered polite to either provide that assistance or to butt out.

One of my kids was keen on "military service", too. He had a patriotic streak, and it practically killed his soul to realize that policy and service weren't connected. These are the type of issues that The Economist usually avoids.

I don't know what else to say, wiggin. If you ask for replacements or alternatives...you should at least take poster's words to heart.

There's literally a greater link between this thread and the price of strawberries in Peru than there is between the thread and your posts.

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Originally Posted by Loki

....When someone asks for assistance, it's generally considered polite to either provide that assistance or to butt out.

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And when I give my opinion, it's rude to call that impolite. :donkey:

No one asked for your or anyone else's opinion on the link between being informed and becoming mentally unbalanced (or whatever your point is).

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Originally Posted by GGT

And when I give my opinion, it's rude to call that impolite. :donkey:

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You gave a heckle, not an opinion, in a General Chat thread. Thus it was a trollish response.

This was an open thread, in an open forum. If you don't like it, then fuck off.

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Originally Posted by GGT

This was an open thread, in an open forum. If you don't like it, then fuck off.

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Awesome, I'll take it that the gloves are now off on all yer loony posts!

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Originally Posted by GGT

This was an open thread, in an open forum. If you don't like it, then fuck off.

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Do you act without a modicum of social decency in public as well?

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Originally Posted by Loki

Do you act without a modicum of social decency in public as well?

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Why don't you answer wiggin's questions? :bored:

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Originally Posted by GGT

Why don't you answer wiggin's questions? :bored:

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You first. (the one he actually asked)

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Originally Posted by Veldan Rath

You first. (the one he actually asked)

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I already said that The Economist has plenty of alternatives. But I'm not seeing anyone else actually talking to wiggin, or addressing the issues he posed. :confused:

To get a full scope pick a right leaning news source and a left leaning news source. Both are going to slant the story in a certain way but the difference is you KNOW the slant is coming. That way you don't fall for trixy editorial tricks.

The main problem isn't bias; it's lack of coverage.

GGT nonsense aside...

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Originally Posted by Spenni

I was into foreign affairs magazine in afganistan. Had a journal format though.

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I've skimmed both Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy in the past; they both have good (though different) coverage, but it doesn't have the same immediacy I'm looking for. That being said, see my response to Loki below.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Agreed on the Economist. It's good for very general knowledge about places that are generally not covered by the US newspapers (i.e. anywhere outside of the West and where there are American troops) and it's certainly excellent on the financial (not economics) portion. But the political details are too editorialish, to the point where it's hard to pinpoint where fact ends and opinion starts. It's also not too good on providing evidence (see previous point). Their editorial stories are total garbage (i.e. their political endorsement are totally inconsistent with their underlying philosophy and they just come up with flimsy illiberal/non-liberal reasons for backing the candidates they like, which happen to be left-wing far too often), but those can be easily ignored.

Have you tried Foreign Policy? It has its own problems, but it tends to have more interesting and informative stories than the Economist. You should also consider Brookings and International Crisis Group for more detailed coverage (that nevertheless is very accessible). These covers your issues 2-5, though not 1.

Frankly, I find that the only way to really be informed about events on the ground is to read newspapers from the countries that you want to know more about (or from newspapers from their colonial masters :o ). Even the best generalalist publications wait until crises before they write about non-Western countries.

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As I mentioned above to Spenni, I like the coverage in general in both FP and FA, but don't like that they aren't more current in their coverage. Both publications have some online presence that's updated more frequently to compensate, but I've found that the blog-style offerings of these publications are far inferior to their more strictly edited but more sporadic pieces. There are notable exceptions (for a long time I enjoyed reading Walter Russell Mead's pieces at The American Interest) but I've found that to be a good rule of thumb.

That being said, it only costs ~$50 p.a. to get a subscription to either, so it might be a reasonable start that could supplement other coverage, especially if their online content is well integrated into a mobile offering (anyone know? I like to read on the train). I assume that for business coverage Bloomberg will be far superior to the likes of Fortune or Forbes, so that can cheaply cover most of my finance/business news. It really just leaves global weekly coverage as a gap. I frankly don't have the time (or language skills) to keep up with such a broad swathe of local news on my own - I mostly focus on the US, a handful of big European countries, Israel, and occasionally China. For the rest, I've really relied on the BBC for daily stuff and The Economist for weekly analysis. Any ideas?

Interesting suggestion re: Brookings and ICG. I've read some of their reports occasionally, of course, but do you have a method of following their pieces on a regular basis? Is there a good app or the like the concatenates interesting stuff from them? If it's just going to be found by digging around their website on an occasional basis, I'm definitely not going to use it as much as I should.

The good news is that even choosing FA/FP and Businessweek still leaves me with plenty of money to spend each year (Economist subscriptions aren't cheap). Anything else decent that can plug the identified gaps?

Thanks!

wiggin, you can't ask people for their opinions, while saying their opinions are smack. Sorry, but if all you want to do is find ways to make money with your money....this forum is probably a bad choice.

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Originally Posted by GGT

wiggin, you can't ask people for their opinions, while saying their opinions are smack. Sorry, but if all you want to do is find ways to make money with your money....this forum is probably a bad choice.

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Your 'opinion' was irrelevant to my question and not at all helpful. Loki and Spenni both gave constructive suggestions, so I responded to them. I will not dignify further of your posts in this vein with a response, and I would encourage others in this thread to do the same. If you actually have relevant suggestions, I would be delighted to hear them.

As for 'making money with my money'... wow. I don't use my news reading to inform investing decisions; all of my (meager) savings is tied up either in cash or low cost index funds.

Good luck with your thread.

Anyhoo, Wigs, sorry to take part on the derailment. I don't have any advice for you on this one, and was actually hoping to leech of the advice you got.

I understand your problems with the economist, but couldn't think of an English language alternative to it.

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Originally Posted by wiggin

I've skimmed both Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy in the past; they both have good (though different) coverage, but it doesn't have the same immediacy I'm looking for. That being said, see my response to Loki below.

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This might be a strange question, but why the focus on immediacy? Personally, I think a deeper understanding of the issues is more important than knowing what exactly is happening on the ground this moment. Especially since most of what happens on a day-to-day basis doesn't really have wider repercussions. I've actually stopped reading Foreign Affairs because it's basically a series of very long op-ed pieces whose main objective is to use rhetorical tools to persuade generalists of the writer's viewpoint. Whenever someone reads a news, they end up doing so in the context of a pre-existing narrative. Without in-depth knowledge of a topic, that narrative will not be a particularly good one, which is to say that the person will misunderstand what's really going on and why.

Related to the point above, why the emphasis on policy prescription? I don't have a problem with policy prescription per se, but the way it's generally done is on a pretty ad hoc manner, emphasizing some idiosyncratic elements the writer finds interesting and cherry-picking evidence to support that prescription. Additionally, policy reporting tends to be done by people familiar with only the area (or country) they're studying, which means they frequently can't see the forest for the trees. Just think about what policy prescriptions a Polish expert would give in 1989 and to what they would attribute the events on the ground. Ditto for an East German expert. Or a Hungary expert.

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Interesting suggestion re: Brookings and ICG. I've read some of their reports occasionally, of course, but do you have a method of following their pieces on a regular basis? Is there a good app or the like the concatenates interesting stuff from them? If it's just going to be found by digging around their website on an occasional basis, I'm definitely not going to use it as much as I should.

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ICG emails me their Eurasia reports. I must have subscribed to those at some point, which suggests that it's a possibility. :p Brookings has newsletters which probably let you know if anything new is out, but I personally haven't tried that approach.

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Originally Posted by Loki

This might be a strange question, but why the focus on immediacy? Personally, I think a deeper understanding of the issues is more important than knowing what exactly is happening on the ground this moment. Especially since most of what happens on a day-to-day basis doesn't really have wider repercussions. I've actually stopped reading Foreign Affairs because it's basically a series of very long op-ed pieces whose main objective is to use rhetorical tools to persuade generalists of the writer's viewpoint. Whenever someone reads a news, they end up doing so in the context of a pre-existing narrative. Without in-depth knowledge of a topic, that narrative will not be a particularly good one, which is to say that the person will misunderstand what's really going on and why.

Related to the point above, why the emphasis on policy prescription? I don't have a problem with policy prescription per se, but the way it's generally done is on a pretty ad hoc manner, emphasizing some idiosyncratic elements the writer finds interesting and cherry-picking evidence to support that prescription. Additionally, policy reporting tends to be done by people familiar with only the area (or country) they're studying, which means they frequently can't see the forest for the trees. Just think about what policy prescriptions a Polish expert would give in 1989 and to what they would attribute the events on the ground. Ditto for an East German expert. Or a Hungary expert.

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Re: immediacy, it's fine for handling long-running sores like Ukraine or Syria or N. Korea - most of the news from a day to day (or week to week) basis is same old, same old. But I would imagine that their coverage on, say, Ghana, is so much more sporadic and granular that I won't ever have a good sense of what's going on in the country. I'd essentially be reading a yearly summary of salient issues facing the country rather than anything more detailed. Immediacy isn't crucial from a time perspective, but more frequent coverage is also more granular. Does that make sense?

As for policy prescription, it's not necessarily required. But I prefer to hear a range of thoughtful ideas on solving a problem rather than just an analysis of it. I am rarely going to be well-suited to come up with a solution on my own (unless they're trying to design a biomaterial ;) ) and I find it refreshing and informative to hear what other people are thinking on the issue. Done well, policy recommendations can be part of a more complex and nuanced analysis that doesn't close off alternatives, but instead provides a forum for lively debate. It isn't often done this way - in the case of publications like The Economist, there are the aforementioned issues with poor sourcing/support and hand waving. In other publications (including many with bylines), you get personality cults built up around specific writers, where they (rather than their ideas) are lionized, and the writer gets too focused on their pet theories (e.g. most of the NYTimes columnists). But I do occasionally see pieces that don't fall into these traps, and they're a real pleasure to read.

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ICG emails me their Eurasia reports. I must have subscribed to those at some point, which suggests that it's a possibility. :p Brookings has newsletters which probably let you know if anything new is out, but I personally haven't tried that approach.

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I already get about 15 journals emailing me their TOCs on a weekly or monthly basis. Granted, sorting through those journals is likely a lot tougher and less fun than a more general readership piece, but I just don't see myself frequently actually following up on a newsletter. Dedicated apps and print editions are the main way I consume media, because other methods just get lost in the cavernous spaces of my inbox.

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Originally Posted by Hazir

I understand your problems with the economist, but couldn't think of an English language alternative to it.

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I'm in the same boat. I can't think of a replacement or mix of replacements that covers everything you want covered, the way you want it covered. The best alternative I can think of is switching to multiple daily newspapers.

I've also been impressed with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, but agreed that it's not really a foreign-affairs resource. Maybe an intricate series of Google News alerts? :)

I don't think there are any English-language journals/newspapers/magazines out there that really do what The Economist does so well, which makes the deficiencies you pointed out in the OP all the more irritating. New Statesman is uneven and several of the other candidates that come to mind would, I think, irritate you with their slant and their style of writing. Financial Times has (I think) been consistently good, for the most part, but it's really a different kind of beast entirely.

Your best bet would probably be to stick with The Economist and supplement it with other reading based on whichever articles it is you find the most irritating in a given issue :o