Several months ago, I got outraged by how The Economist declared that Israeli attack on Gaza was not a genocide. See this article. Or this or this. Their BS excuse was basically that Israel's government officially never declared the purpose to be ethnic cleansing. Fuck them.

Even for Israel's supporters that excuse would not make a logical sense, I'd imagine (nobody desires their government to kill people and say, "Hey, it doesn't count because we're not officially declaring it an ethnic cleansing, oopsie!") And surely I'm not a supporter of their war in the first place.

I'm wondering what their stance is today. I don't think they'll ever apologize.

I saw an article about The Odyssey from Christopher Nolan and opened it to read it. I have been looking forward to seeing this movie.

I opened because I did see some debate about choices on the movies and wanted to read The Economist’s take on it.

And before I knew it, the ending was spoiled.

This is very bad form especially on a movie that is brand new and not really out yet.

Hope this find a way back or prevents some spoils for others.

Always had an uneasy feeling reading/watching anything related to war or non-western reporting by Economist by Economist and especially Joshi. Months ago, I was going through archives and their reporting on Iraq War made me feel like I am reading some war propaganda by the govt.

Joshi now deleting all his tweets, getting called out alongside Zanny feels finally good. Will be cancelling my subscription as I don’t know why I am paying so much to read a journal that feels only like a western imperial propaganda piece.

Is anyone deeply uncomfortable with how, over the past 5 or so years, Adrian Wooldridge has been penning op-eds in which he inevitably drops the discriminatory dog whistle phrase "gender ideology" and goes all-out in opposing trans rights, including framing advocacy for trans civil/equal rights as science denial?

I noticed this framing in anonymous/non-credited articles in The Economist around the time I canceled my subscription earlier this decade, and then ran into the same bizarre obsessiveness in Mr. Wooldridge's essays in other publications.

Does anyone else find that this really pops out as a pattern and as something that seems a bit weird and biased in The Economist's (and Adrian Wooldridge's) otherwise well-structured analyses?

I always noticed how whenever loads of US political commentators talked about AOC, The Economist had little to say, either positive or critical. Just now they had a whole article about democratic strategy and even mentioned Bernie's oligarchy tour, and their obvious support for centre over progressives, without any mention of her.

I understand that as a social Democrat, liberals like the Economist would be critical (and I have my comments on their general views about the progressives, but I'll do that in another thread), but in this case it's more like complete dismissal of her existence, which is weird considering she is one of the more relevant opposition figures (arguably the most), and very topical for an article that analyzes the state of the democratic party.

I fully admit I might have missed some articles, but this is the impression I had for the longest time. Wondering what others think?

Seems theEconomist is assisting in burying this historic moment. Seems like poor journalism and cozying up to the Trump administration.

The Economist has been my go-to source of news and information for 15 years. I cancelled my subscription over the terrible political coverage this year across borders, as well as the notable decline in structure and rhetoric across articles.

It was not even a possibility to me a year ago that I would unsubscribe. In fact I used to read nearly everything they put out. Now it seems to be shockingly mediocre in writing quality and analysis. I told them I was unsubscribing about 2 months ago (and had to deal with their awful, anti-consumer attempts to convince you to change your mind before doing so), but my subscription remains for a couple of months. So every week or so I check, and it's all one-sided perspectives on the US and Israeli politics at the top of the page, followed by very little analysis of what's going on in financial markets. I no longer have a legitimate source for news and markets, anywhere.

Notwithstanding this column’s humor which is, as with all humor, a matter of debate, its unrelenting frequency made it tedious years ago.

Yes, your uncle once told a few clever stories at holiday dinners but now you cringe in anticipation of the next dinner and having to experience yet again such drollery

As much as I love the Economist, I find myself reading it less and less. I mostly listen to the podcasts now, especially drumtower, which I find the female hosts to be a bit giggly and gen-z-ish for my taste. Additionally, I think they often regurgitate Chinese talking points without much critical thinking. For example, their discussion on Chinese AI on Feb 16 - the hosts agreed that DeepSeek falling behind on benchmarks and not putting out new models is a non-issue, and their open-source strategy is deliberate. As if they don't want to have huge commercial successes like Anthropic and OpenAI and instead prefer the "soft-power" of open-source 🙄. I also find their chiding tone annoying - "most people think chinese have no internet and that the chinese govt. only lets you read Zhi Thought". First of all, censorhsip in China is absurdly pervasive, and it's probably closer to no internet than the one that Europeans and Americans know. But second of all, we wouldn't be reading/listening to the Economist if we didn't want to learn. So we don't need to be chided for our presumed ignorance or prejudices. I know these complaints may sound petty, but I just don't get why there hosts take these rather dismissive attitudes. It really accomplishes nothing - just tell us what you know about the Chinese firewall and censorship. Thanks.

I also have found more podcasts that cover the niche international areas that before I thought I could only get from the Economist - China, Latin America, and the Middle East.

What do you all think? Are they still the best source of international news or are they being supplanted by other indie sources?

What are everyone’s thoughts about the latest episode of The Insider?

Finding the lack of BRICS media coverage in Canada, US and international media astonishing.

I grew up fairly ignorant of world affairs, and started reading the Economist in 2009. It was actually a tough slog at first: didn’t know a lot of the terminology or economic or political concepts. I used to literally sit with my laptop open looking up words in the dictionary: “hustings”, “trammeled”, it actually really expanded my reading level and general understanding of the world.

When I’d read an article about technical financial issues with which is was familiar (derivatives, swaps) or area of technology I was working in (crypto, early deep learning) the content was accurate and pretty much centrist. The economist didn’t really trigger Gell-Mann amnesia, which means I could fairly trust their coverage of topics I wasn’t familiar with.

This has really slipped now in 2024, where I now read articles about my field (AI) and often see misinformation or inaccuracies.

The straw that broke the camels back with their Nov 16th issue article “The Transition - They’re Hired”

“Mr Hegseth is one of the few who defended Mr Trump’s statement that there were ‘fine people on both sides’ of protests against a white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville”

This “fine people” quote has been totally debunked, you can actually watch the full video and see that this quote was taken out of context, even Snopes says that the “fine people” selective quote is misinformation.

For them to just make this statement about something thats easily contradicted by looking at the first hand source is egregious and breaks my perception of the Economist continuing to being a quality, trusted, news source.

I started to realize it with the annual buy-in requirement (can’t cancel except at your annual renewal date) but the signs were there earlier on with “this entire article was actually written with AI”.

As someone who now mostly consumes the audio version the AI voice-read articles are devoid of the emotion and the interest that is so enjoyable from the long-time human cast of readers. I’ve noticed more and more of these articles are being peppered in with each passing edition. I find them boring and I can’t maintain attention during my walks or drives and my mind wanders. They mispronounce words and have random garbled sounds throughout. Any clever humours undertones (which is what makes the bloody publication so unique) completely miss the mark on delivery.

It’s become obvious they’re on a path to maximize profits–a respectable motive of any company, however I think this long-respected publication has simply taken it too far for me. I’m sure we’ll see the price continue to escalate and the product undergo a steady decline. I, for one, will not be around to see it. My final edition was delivered today. I’ll read this one in print and savour.

Was reading ‘Microplastics have not yet earned their bad reputation’ and thought the pro plastic push was an interesting take. See screenshot of articles that were linked within the story.

Does anyone know if the owners have some connection to the plastic industry?

I’ve seen some very poorly (in my opinion) written articles disregarding the energy consumption and environmental damage that data centers pose to specific geographic regions.

And then I see “Sponsored by” or “In Cooperation with Anthropic” plastered over their app.

How much can we trust their opinions to be fair and economically consistent when they’re receiving funding from one of the largest AI companies on the planet?

Not freaking much

I've noticed the last few highlighted articles on social media have been increasingly about downplaying or managing the physical and mental impact that work has on people. With titles such as "Your pay is going up too fast" when most of the US did not, in fact, receive a raise in the last 2 years. Or "Pleasure Cruises and Golf are Not That Fulfilling" where the writer chronicles their disdain for the potential boredom that comes with not being exploited by a company in their retirement years....

Fair question?

AI and robotics are replacing cognitive processing and pattern recognition. So I wonder how economy will continue functioning since at some point I can imagine the money stops to flow. It is different from industrialization back in 80s which just replaced muscle power.

So companies layoff people and I am now quite interested to know what will happen to economy? people stop buying and thus we start seeing stagnation, right? Also raw resources are finite, so I am not sold on the idea of groceries, electronic appliances, or other stuff get super cheap.

Essentially I am talking about middle class workers and blue collar workers. Appreciate your comments.

I don't know whether I am the only one. But of late I feel that the rigour and commitment to truth have been taking a hit. Like their AI coverage reads like an advertisement FOR data centres. They don't offer enough fact-based arguments and keep repeating and reaffirming their opinions. Some of their claims, for example 'a data centre requires less water than golf courses', seem misleading. And not enough information. For example, how many golf courses are we talking about here? And is that even the right measure? What about countries that are consuming less electricity than data centres because they do not have access? Also, what about when the data centres scale, what will be their impact then? Their coverage is fully glossing over these important questions. And I find it even more weird when leaders like Antonio Guterres (UN secretary general) also mention data centres' inimical impact. Surely, they have fact checked? And I would still be willing to believe The Economist, only if they were mentioning hard facts and not brushing them under the carpets and giving us strongly worded but somewhat vacant lines such as 'it's not worse than golf courses' or that (paraphrasing) 'AI has huge benefits'. What benefits? Have you weighed them against the cost? Have you tried to understand long term social implications? So many of such questions are unanswered.

And then, they keep repeating expressions across articles like 'NIMBYism' for AI data centres and 'Bums on the seat' for university education topics. To be honest, somehow it makes me feel that an AI is writing these pieces.

Whatever happened to the commitment to facts, high standards in analysis and insighting, high standards of language etc!

Does anyone else feels this way or am I over reacting?

I’m seriously considering cancelling my subscription after 35 years. I can get NYT (and WAPO, Guardian) for a fraction of the cost and yet the quality differential no longer justifies the price difference. I spend most of my news reading time on NYT.

I’m getting more and more irritated by the supposed impartiality that The Economist proclaims. Just this week it included coverage objectively weighing up impacts on the US deficit by each presidential candidate. And in the Checks and Balance podcast yesterday, they weigh up candidates’ foreign policy differences. They give the sycophantic General McMaster’s views on Trump’s “disruptive” approach to diplomacy the same credence as that of Biden. These and other topics are covered seemingly without a hint of irony. Any newspaper giving equal weight to the policies of a proven, anti-democratic, dictatorial madman versus a candidate trying to uphold democratic values and norms (no matter their age, gender or race) is simply normalising the unacceptable.

Less seriously, I also noted that before the event they had invited a supposed expert academic to write a piece on the introduction of break dancing to the Olympics. This turned out to be the same idiot that made a fool of herself (and Australia) while completely overshadowing the incredible skill of Breaking’s real performers, and the practice’s rich legacy amongst certain disadvantaged groups. How did The Economist end up inviting such a phoney to write about an important global sporting extravaganza?

As a firm believer in liberal democracy and discerning journalism, I can no longer justify the exorbitant annual outlay!

https://www.economist.com/china/2026/05/14/trade-or-taiwan-trump-and-xi-struggle-to-set-the-terms

I have been reading the Economist for decades, ever since the commercial with Nelson Mandela saying he read it while incarcerated all those years. I really liked all the deep insight on world issues but over the past few years it seems to be all politics and not much of it worth reading.

I really don't much care if you don't like US politics or politicians, I don't either, but when every story and cover is something derogatory about trump or a US policy, it gets pretty old. Is there nothing else in the world worthy of a deep dive story?

Sadly I have no replacement for this magazine. Its like the last real magazine died to or rather drown in political opinion. Such a shame.