Monday, October 06, 2008

Is The Economist Leaning to the Left?

As all of you know I swear by The Economist, but ever since they got a new editor, I sensed it has taken a turn to the left. Global warming is a foregone conclusion, environmentalism takes up precious space that should be used instead on economic/financial issues, and every time I have the time to sit and read through an issue I'm let down more and more by an increasing percentage of the articles I disagree with.

But this took the cake and more or less has me convinced that at the corporate HQ of The Economist changes have been made and there has been a direct order to report a more leftist slant;


Additionally look at this map;


It shows the world overly in favor of Obama. Interestingly enough 100% of Saudi's are for Obama and 0% for McCain. But if you click on the US, you'll see that 20% are for McCain while 80% are for Obama.

Interesting. I could have swore they were in a statistical deadheat according to our domestic polls.

Alas, maybe The Economist is truly capitalist and just catering to a larger leftist readership.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why does what the rest of the world want matter?

Anonymous said...

Yep, a lot of people noticing and commenting on the Economist's... change of tone, and tone aside, diminution of rigour.

Hot Sam said...

In other words, Obama has widespread approval from communists, socialists, islamofascists, terrorists, social welfare states, destitute third-world dictatorships and oligarchies, and our main economic rivals.

How comforting.

Bike Bubba said...

Does this mean that they're going to start coming out in favor of the corn laws, too? :^)

Unknown said...

I've had a (gift)sub for over a year and would occasionally buy off the rack before then(hence the gift sub)
At the time I saw it as a center-left pro globalist generally capitalist not necessarily pro freedom magazine that was good on numbers. Your election seems to have driven them very left very fast/ Although I was surprised It took you this long to notice. I had always thought that they were the typical european kind of clueless about this continent. but they have definitely had the knives out for anyone conservative since late fall last year and have become even more nasty lately.
I do wonder if any three-letter organizations called them about their death wish on hillary earlier this year though as they haven't suggested McCain be taken into a back room and shot yet.(still time for that though)

Anonymous said...

i stopped reading the economist years ago. for several years they were very good, unbiased, and factual. now it is crap.

Anonymous said...

The Economist isn't leftist, they're center-right. But there's no new bias there. They endorsed Bill Clinton in 92 and 98 and John Kerry in 04. Obama is the kind of candidate they've always liked.

Anonymous said...

Re anonymous at 5:21AM

Funny how diminution of rigour leads to slinking over to the left.

As far as I'm concerned because the rest of the world wants Obama, that's one more reason to NOT vote for him.

I'm voting for McCain for a lots of reasons, but two that are the icing on the proverbial cake are a) to give the world an obscene gesture (no it doesn't mean you're number one) and b) to prove to the MSM press that they can stick their heads up their indignant asses.

Anonymous said...

The Economist isn't leftist, they're center-right. Obama is the kind of candidate they've always liked.

That makes no sense. If they've always liked hard-core Marxists like Obama, they're not center-right.

Anonymous said...

Cap - agreed on your suspicions. When I first laid my hands on an Economist back in the early 90's it was an unabashedly pro-free market, pro-capitalism, anti-socialist newspaper. Over the last few years its seems to have steadily moved left to the point where they seem to be regularly advocating increased government interference in the economy and taking up trendy issues like global warming.

Others note this as well: http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2007/02/the_economist_t.html

Anonymous said...

I've noticed that they are especially left-leaning on issues like health care and environment, which are, of course, already socialized in Great Britain. In my opinion, they represent the typical British social liberal capitalism that is also characteristic of centrist democrats in America, e.g. Lieberman.

Anonymous said...

I especially enjoyed the comment above that the fact the rest of the world likes Obama is a reason not to vote for him. That's so stupid a comment, i laughed out loud. What a great reason to get out and vote - make sure the anti-Americanism created during the Bush years isn't lost. That's how we make the world a better place - make sure they still hate us! Nice one!

Anonymous said...

I have noticed The Economist has left leaning articles over the past year. This was not true of articles from even a couple years ago. Is there a good unbiased NEWS magazine I don't know about?