Not Time or Newsweek with Oxford accent

Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post takes a look at The Economist in the wake of its recent billboard and radio ad campaign in Washington, where it has approximately 36,000 subscribers.

Kurtz wrote, “The 164-year-old London magazine — a finalist for a National Magazine Award in its first year of eligibility — fields 10 correspondents in the States. ‘If people don’t think we cover America well, they’ll be unlikely to trust us on the other stuff,’ [editor John] Micklethwait says.

“The writing is tight, foreign policy and economics get ample space, and the likes of Paris Hilton (jail term or not) are conspicuously absent. Last week’s cover story was titled ‘The Battle for Turkey’s Soul.’ Vladimir Putin made the cover depicted as a gangster, and after the Virginia Tech shootings the cover image was a star-spangled gun, with the headline ‘America’s Tragedy.’

“That story demonstrated that the magazine is not Time or Newsweek with an Oxford accent. It said the National Rifle Association ‘constantly exaggerates the threat to gun-owners’ and that ‘few urban Americans swallow this twaddle,’ although some rural people ‘think anti-gun Democrats are wusses.’ Similarly, a piece on Rudy Giuliani declared: ‘He has a hideous temper and a tendency to bully. . . . He is famously and foolishly intolerant of criticism. . . . Mr. Giuliani has at times shown woeful judgment.'”

Read more here.