Is The Economist Always Wrong?

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• Hacker News
• After subscribing for 15 years or so, I noped out after their "walker" cover. The world has enough "both sides" journalism, and I had thought them somewhat immune from that.
  by davidw
• 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-...

  by next_xibalba
• 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.

  by akoboldfrying
• 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.
  by narism
• What is “both sides” about that article?
  by gmadsen
• yeah imagine thinking biden was too old and infirm
  by robomc
• They aren't great on transgender topics I hear
  by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF
• I don’t know what person reads The Economist to learn about trans topics (whatever you mean by that)
  by smt88
• Yes, because they lie all the time.
  by SanjayMehta
• Wow, I find economist to be one of the best publications to read about global events. Can you say more about what you think they lie about?
  by cman1444
• Please don't put anything with the paywall here.
  by lalitium
• Sorry, who are you exactly to give people orders?
  by left-struck
• Agreed. Does someone have a summary of the article?
  by babagan0ush
• Bernie's mittens of Fire can roundturn to Biden as dab-brushes, the economist can arrange for a formal hearing for Iowa caucuses as letters to Lagrange as first claim.
  by Simpledempkin
• Wow. “We asked the wrong question and used the wrong tool to get a questionable answer, and then decided to publish it.” I guess the answer is yes?
  by skywhopper
• Betteridge's law of headlines :)
  by Insanity
• We will never know as the article is behind a paywall:)
  by nnurmanov
• Here is a mirror of the article without a paywall.

  https://archive.is/FziAy

  The Economist is partly owned by the Rothschild dynasty and was chaired by Evelyn de Rothschild for 17 years, so I've always just assumed it is going to tell you whatever would favor the global elite banking class.

  by m348e912
• 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...

  by andsoitis
• By making this headline, the Economist put us into a paradox. Quite clever
  by menachemsd
• there should be some law where publications have to track their brier scores
  by iamanllm
• I’d be surprised if they knew what a brier score was
  by tccole
• [dupe] Discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48791799
  by ChrisArchitect
• An outgoing foreign affairs editor suggested in 1988 that the newspaper ‘never saw a war it didn’t like’. 𐞸

  𐞸 https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2020/05/27/book-rev...

  𐞸 Maybe outdated regarding the later conflicts (tbh i don't know, i didn't follow their positions on the Ukraine and the Middle-East wars).

  by doe88
• They're very strongly against the Iran War right now.
  by fugaziboutit
• I think the question was wrong. The problem is that the important things are wrong and the trivial things are right, which causes confusion.
  by jdw64
• > Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." It is based on the assumption that if the publishers were confident that the answer was yes, they would have presented it as an assertion; by presenting it as a question, they are not accountable for whether it is correct or not.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

  by tedmiston
• 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".

  by bryanrasmussen
• 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.
  by MarkusQ
• As an economist, you may say what, you may say when, but never both at the same time.
  by harrouet