The Economist: feliz 170. aniversario; e continue assim que esta'; muitobem

Uma revista "velhinha"? Talvez.

Nem tudo o que é velho é ruim, eu inclusive (bem, mas eu considero ter eternos 19 anos).

O fato é que já fiz muita pesquisa histórica na The Economist, que eu acessava diretamente nas estantes da biblioteca do Instituto de Sociologia da Universidade de Bruxelas, onde eu passava longas horas no início dos anos 1970.

Fui consultar, por exemplo, como a revista tinha tratado do surgimento da República no Brasil, em 1889. Decepcionante: uma notinha ridícula mais de um mês depois do golpe dos militares.

Não seja, por isso: fui assinante irregular durante muitos anos (inclusive no Brasil, onde uma assinatura é bem cara), e sou um leitor regular, assíduo e constante, desde longos anos.

Sem hesitação eu a proclamo a melhor revista do mundo em todas as categorias que me interessam, que são as das humanidades em geral e da política econômica em particular.

Ponto, deixemos agora a revista se explicar ela mesma.

Well, happy birthday! Vou renovar minha assinatura...

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Is The Economist left- or right-wing?

Sep 2nd 2013, 23:50 by J.C.

Editor’s note: This week, to mark the 170th anniversary of the appearance of the first issue of The Economist on September 2nd 1843, this blog will answer some of the more frequently asked questions about The Economist itself.

SOME readers, particularly those used to the left-right split in most democratic legislatures, are bamboozled by The Economist’s political stance. We like free enterprise and tend to favour deregulation and privatisation. But we also like gay marriage, want tolegalise drugs and disapprove of monarchy. So is the newspaper right-wing or left-wing?

Neither, is the answer. The Economist was founded in 1843 by James Wilson, a British businessman who objected to heavy import duties on foreign corn. Mr Wilson and his friends in the Anti-Corn Law League were classical liberals in the tradition of Adam Smith and, later, the likes of John Stuart Mill and William Ewart Gladstone. This intellectual ancestry has guided the newspaper's instincts ever since: it opposes all undue curtailment of an individual’s economic or personal freedom. But like its founders, it is not dogmatic. Where there is a liberal case for government to do something, The Economistwill air it. Early in its life, its writers were keen supporters of the income tax, for example. Since then it has backed causes like universal health care and gun control. But its starting point is that government should only remove power and wealth from individuals when it has an excellent reason to do so.

The concepts of right- and left-wing predate The Economist's foundation by half a century. They first referred to seating arrangements in the National Assembly in Paris during the French Revolution. Monarchists sat on the right, revolutionaries on the left. To this day, the phrases distinguish conservatives from egalitarians. But they do a poor job of explaining The Economist’s liberalism, which reconciles the left’s impatience at an unsatisfactory status quo with the right’s scepticism about grandiose redistributive schemes. So although its credo and its history are as rich as that of any reactionary or revolutionary, The Economist has no permanent address on the left-right scale. In most countries, the political divide is conservative-egalitarian, not liberal-illiberal. So it has no party allegiance, either. When it covers elections, it gives its endorsement to the candidate or party most likely to pursue classically liberal policies. It has thrown its weight behind politicians on the right, like Margaret Thatcher, and on the left, like Barack Obama. It is often drawn to centrist politicians and parties who appear to combine the best of both sides, such as Tony Blair, whose combination of social and economic liberalism persuaded it to endorse him at the 2001 and the 2005 elections (though it criticised his government’s infringements of civil liberties).

When The Economist opines on new ideas and policies, it does so on the basis of their merits, not of who supports or opposes them. Last October, for example, it outlined a programme of reforms to combat inequality. Some, like attacking monopolies and targeting public spending on the poor and the young, had a leftish hue. Others, like raising retirement ages and introducing more choice in education, were more rightish. The result, "True Progressivism", was a blend of the two: neither right nor left, but all the better for it, and coming instead from what we like to call the radical centre. 

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The Economist explains itself

Why does The Economist call itself a newspaper?

Sep 1st 2013, 23:50 by T.S.

Editor’s note: This week, to mark the 170th anniversary of the appearance of the first issue of The Economist on September 2nd 1843, this blog will answer some of the more frequently asked questions about The Economist itself.

UNLIKE other weekly news magazines, The Economist refers to itself as a newspaper, and as “this newspaper” in its leaders (see, for example, the leaders on Syria and theFederal Reserve in the current issue). Why?

In August 1843 when James Wilson, a Scottish hatmaker, published the prospectus forThe Economist, a new periodical he planned to launch, he described it as “a weekly paper, to be published every Saturday”. The first issue, which appeared on September 2nd, described itself as a “political, commercial, agricultural, and free-trade journal” on its masthead (we used Oxford commas in those days). To modern eyes the 19th-century black-and-white incarnation of The Economist is clearly a newspaper, and it looked very similar until the middle of the 20th century. The red logo appeared for the first time in 1959, the first colour cover in 1971, and it was only in 2001 that full colour was introduced on all inside pages. By the time the transformation from newspaper to magazine format had been completed, the habit of referring to ourselves as “this newspaper” had stuck.

The Economist, moreover, still considers itself more of a newspaper than a magazine in spirit. Its aim is to be a comprehensive weekly newspaper for the world. If you are stranded on a desert island and can have only one periodical air-dropped to you to keep up with world news, our hope is that you would choose The Economist. That goal is arguably more in keeping with the approach of a newspaper than a magazine. The latter term derives from the French word for storehouse and implies a more specific publication devoted to a particular topic, rather than coverage of current affairs. Indeed, The Economist is produced on a newspaper rather than a magazine schedule. Just as a Sunday newspaper will cover news up to and including Saturday, events that happen on Thursday may be covered in the edition of The Economist that appears on newsstands on Fridays.

Just as people still talk of “dialling” phone numbers (even though phones no longer have dials) and CC (carbon copy) e-mails, some expressions outlive changes in technology. If the day ever comes when this newspaper is no longer published in paper form, but instead delivered digitally, it seems likely that it will still be calling itself “this newspaper”.

Clarification: This post was amended on September 2nd to reflect the fact, pointed out by a former executive editor, that The Economist's production schedule is more like that of a newspaper than a magazine.

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How does The Economist choose what to cover?

Sep 3rd 2013, 23:50 by E.H.

Editor’s note: This week, to mark the 170th anniversary of the appearance of the first issue of The Economist on September 2nd 1843, this blog will answer some of the more frequently asked questions about The Economist itself.

EVERY week a new issue of The Economist appears on news-stands (both actual and digital) and lands on doormats around the world. Each issue typically contains 70 or 80 stories, from the leaders to the obituary. Some provide reporting and analysis of that week's news; others examine longer-term trends. How does The Economist decide what to cover each week?

The process is both bottom-up and top-down. It begins on Friday morning. Just as readers are opening the latest issue, we begin the process of planning the next one. The editors in charge of the "front half" (the Britain, United States and the foreign department), the "back half" (the Business, Finance and Science sections) and the Books section (which is not classified as one of the two "halves") discuss with their writers what they have planned for the following week, and draw up rough story lists. The highlights of these lists are read out at a meeting in the editor-in-chief's office, which all editorial staff can attend, and provisional candidates for the following week's cover and leaders are identified. The main editorial meeting happens on Monday morning, again in the editor's office. Compared with the Friday meeting, this one can be quite a squeeze, with many attendees standing, perching on window sills or sitting on the floor. Section editors read out their story lists, traditionally starting with the obituary, and the editor resolves any overlaps or conflicts between sections.

The main business of the Monday meeting, and the most entertaining part for both participants and visitors, is the discussion of the leaders. Usually there is room in each issue for five or six leaders, but ten or more may be proposed. So there is an element of gladiatorial combat as each leader is proposed and debated in turn, and the journalists discuss what The Economist's position should be. At the end of the meeting the editor announces which leaders will be included in that week's issue, and which will go on the cover. In cases where there was not a clear consensus on what line the leader should take, the editor issues his ruling. The story list then issued on Monday afternoon is necessarily still provisional. At a smaller meeting on Wednesday morning, held once again in the editor's office, section editors explain how they have modified their story lists in response to news. At this point the leader list and cover choice may also be revised. Section editors then have to produce a reasonably final set of pages by Wednesday night. But everything can still be revised on Thursday morning before the pages close, shortly before noon. The London bombings on July 7th 2005, for example, took place on a Thursday morning, so a new leader was written and the cover changed.

The cover is not always news-driven, however; it may be pegged to a pre-planned special report or briefing, for example. In general we strive to produce a mixture of thematic and news-driven covers. Each section of the newspaper usually contains a similar mixture: reporting and analysis of the week's news, accompanied by trendspotting articles, data-driven pieces and "jolly boxes" (also known in Economist-speak as "canapés"). These days, of course, the web allows us to respond to news more quickly and provide additional items (blogs, video and debates) to complement the weekly edition. Yet even though the web has enabled us to expand our output, The Economist does not try to cover everything, but instead acts as a filter for our readers. Our aim is to select the topics that are most important or otherwise noteworthy and to provide a distinctive perspective on them, bundled up into a compact weekly package that you can actually get to the end of.

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(Continua outro dia...)