The Economist


The Economist is a British news and current affairs journal published in a weekly print magazine format and daily on digital platforms. Variously referred to as a magazine and a newspaper, it publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. Mostly written and edited in London, it has other editorial offices in the United States and in major cities in continental Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The publication prominently features data journalism, and has a focus on interpretive analysis over original reporting, to both criticism and acclaim.
Founded in 1843, The Economist was first circulated by Scottish economist James Wilson to muster support for abolishing the British Corn Laws, a system of import tariffs. Over time, the newspaper's coverage expanded further into political economy and eventually began running articles on current events, finance, commerce, and British politics. Throughout the mid-to-late 20th century, it greatly expanded its layout and format, adding opinion columns, special reports, political cartoons, reader letters, cover stories, art critique, book reviews, and technology features. The paper is recognisable by its fire engine red masthead and illustrated, topical covers. Individual articles are written anonymously, with no byline, in order for the paper to speak as one collective voice. It is supplemented by its sister lifestyle magazine, 1843, and a variety of podcasts, films, and books. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK.
The editorial stance of The Economist primarily revolves around classical, social, and most notably economic liberalism. It has supported radical centrism, favouring policies and governments that maintain centrist politics. The newspaper typically champions economic liberalism, particularly free markets, free trade, free immigration, deregulation, and globalisation. Its extensive use of word play and high subscription price has linked the paper with a high-income elite readership, drawing both positive and negative connotations. In line with this, it claims to have an influential readership of prominent business leaders and policy-makers.

History

The Economist was founded by the British businessman and banker James Wilson in 1843, to advance the repeal of the Corn Laws, a system of import tariffs. A prospectus for the newspaper from 5 August 1843 enumerated thirteen areas of coverage that its editors wanted the publication to focus on:
  • Original leading articles, in which free-trade principles will be most rigidly applied to all the important questions of the day.
  • Articles relating to some practical, commercial, agricultural, or foreign topic of passing interest, such as foreign treaties.
  • An article on the elementary principles of political economy, applied to practical experience, covering the laws related to prices, wages, rent, exchange, revenue and taxes.
  • Parliamentary reports, with particular focus on commerce, agriculture and free trade.
  • Reports and accounts of popular movements advocating free trade.
  • General news from the Court of St James's, the Metropolis, the Provinces, Scotland, and Ireland.
  • Commercial topics such as changes in fiscal regulations, the state and prospects of the markets, imports and exports, foreign news, the state of the manufacturing districts, notices of important new mechanical improvements, shipping news, the money market, and the progress of railways and public companies.
  • Agricultural topics, including the application of geology and chemistry; notices of new and improved implements, state of crops, markets, prices, foreign markets and prices converted into English money; from time to time, in some detail, the plans pursued in Belgium, Switzerland, and other well-cultivated countries.
  • Colonial and foreign topics, including trade, produce, political and fiscal changes, and other matters, including exposés on the evils of restriction and protection, and the advantages of free intercourse and trade.
  • Law reports, confined chiefly to areas important to commerce, manufacturing, and agriculture.
  • Books, confined chiefly, but not so exclusively, to commerce, manufacturing, and agriculture, and including all treatises on political economy, finance, or taxation.
  • A commercial gazette, with prices and statistics of the week.
  • Correspondence and inquiries from the newspaper's readers.
Wilson described it as taking part in "a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress", a phrase which still appears on its imprint as the publication's mission. It has long been respected as "one of the most competent and subtle Western periodicals on public affairs". It was cited by Karl Marx in his formulation of socialist theory because Marx felt the publication epitomised the interests of the bourgeoisie. He wrote that "the London Economist, the European organ of the aristocracy of finance, described most strikingly the attitude of this class." In 1915, revolutionary Vladimir Lenin referred to The Economist as a "journal that speaks for British millionaires". Additionally, Lenin stated that The Economist held a "bourgeois-pacifist" position and supported peace out of fear of revolution.
In the currency disputes of the mid-nineteenth century, the journal sided with the Banking School against the Currency School. It criticised the Bank Charter Act 1844 which restricted the amount of bank notes that the Bank of England could issue on the basis of Currency School policy encouraged by Lord Overstone, that eventually developed into monetarism. It blamed the 1857 financial crisis in Britain on 'a certain class of doctrinaires' who 'refer every commercial crisis and its disastrous consequences to "excessive issues of bank notes". It identified the causes of the financial crisis as variations in interest rates and a build-up of excess financial capital leading to unwise investments.
In 1920, the paper's circulation rose to 6,170. In 1934, it underwent its first major redesign. The current fire engine red nameplate was created by Reynolds Stone in 1959. In 1971, The Economist changed its large broadsheet format into a smaller magazine-style perfect-bound formatting. In 1981 the publication introduced a North American edition after publishing the British edition since 1843; its circulation had increased more than tenfold by 2010. In January 2012, The Economist launched a new weekly section devoted exclusively to China, the first new country section since the introduction of one on the United States in 1942.
In 1991, James Fallows argued in The Washington Post that The Economist used editorial lines that contradicted the news stories they purported to highlight. In 1999, Andrew Sullivan complained in The New Republic that it uses "marketing genius" to make up for deficiencies in original reporting, resulting in "a kind of Reader's Digest" for America's corporate elite. The Guardian wrote that "its writers rarely see a political or economic problem that cannot be solved by the trusted three-card trick of privatisation, deregulation and liberalisation".
In 2005, the Chicago Tribune named it the best English-language paper noting its strength in international reporting where it does not feel moved to "cover a faraway land only at a time of unmitigated disaster" and that it kept a wall between its reporting and its more conservative editorial policies. In 2008, Jon Meacham, former editor of Newsweek and a self-described "fan", criticised The Economist focus on analysis over original reporting. In 2012, The Economist was accused of hacking into the computer of Justice Mohammed Nizamul Huq of the Bangladesh Supreme Court, leading to his resignation as the chairman of the International Crimes Tribunal. In August 2015, Pearson sold its 50% stake in the newspaper to the Italian Agnelli family's investment company, Exor, for £469 million and the paper re-acquired the remaining shares for £182 million.

Fossil fuel advertising

An investigation by the Intercept, the Nation and DeSmog found that The Economist is one of the leading media outlets that publishes advertising for the fossil fuel industry. Journalists who cover climate change for The Economist are concerned that conflicts of interest with the companies and industries that caused climate change and obstructed action will reduce the credibility of their reporting on climate change and cause readers to downplay the climate crisis.

Organisation

The Economist is a member of the Economist Group.

Shareholders

Pearson plc held a 50% shareholding via The Financial Times Limited until August 2015. At that time, Pearson sold their share in the Economist. The Agnelli family's Exor paid £287m to raise their stake from 4.7% to 43.4% while the Economist paid £182m for the balance of 5.04m shares which will be distributed to current shareholders. Aside from the Agnelli family, smaller shareholders in the company include Cadbury, Rothschild, Schroder, Layton and other family interests as well as a number of staff and former staff shareholders. A board of trustees formally appoints the editor, who cannot be removed without its permission. The Economist Newspaper Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Economist Group. Sir Evelyn Robert de Rothschild was chairman of the company from 1972 to 1989.
Although The Economist has a global emphasis and scope, about two-thirds of the 75 staff journalists are based in the London borough of Westminster. However, due to half of all subscribers originating in the United States, The Economist has core editorial offices and substantial operations in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington D.C.