Economist News Brief
I stopped by the convenience store downstairs from my office the other day to pick up three magazines: Time, Newsweek, and The Economist. The first two are known as “standards” in news magazines; people read those weekly to find out what’s going on in the world. However, in comparison to The Economist, Time and Newsweek seem, well, weak.
The early pages of a magazine can actually be very revealing. Newsweek’s first few pages are satisfactory. Some of the articles are political, some focus on celebrities, and some focus on other current events. Time, on the other hand, is pure fluff. The first two articles before the letters to the editor focus on the inventor of Nintendo and Jim Morrison. By page 17, there are at least teasers for “real” news, but I’ve still learned more about Lindsay Lohan than anybody else.
The Economist, however, is different. The blurbs in the front are all political articles, and the magazine is organized by geographical area. Instead of a focus on celebrity gossip, community oddities, and current events, there is a focus on true political analysis. I learned more on pages eight and nine of The Economist (”The world this week”) than I did in either Time or Newsweek. The analysis is focused, correct, and interesting. They seek to report what’s happening and comment on it; the writers make no secret of their opinions.
I don’t think I’ll even buy Time or Newsweek again unless I need some light reading. The one drawback to an excellent publication like The Economist is that it takes effort to read and truly understand all of the information. It’s also more expensive.
However, it’s worth the extra money. I’m buying the new issue tomorrow!
economist, time, newsweek, media
July 29th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Three cheers and a full beer for The Economist!!!!
You could read one issue of The Economist and watch one 30 minute segment of the BBC and get more real news about the world than a month’s worth of Time and Fox News.