The Economist: Not for dummyheads

Larry Dobrow of Advertising Age gushes about The Economist and its high-brow coverage.

Dubrow wrote, “It’s long-established that The Economist does geopolitics better than any publication on the planet, whether snaring interviews with Hamas bigs or evaluating the strife in Kenya from a perspective other than ‘long-distance runners are getting caught in the crossfire.’ Where the publication has surged in recent months is in its business coverage, which seemed an afterthought in years past.

“Rather than slopping a mess of personality atop its dispatches, The Economist plays its business profiles (such as the Feb. 2 one of investment guru Eddie Lampert) straight, all the better to give readers a sense of why their subjects matter. Its pieces on Unilever’s push into emerging markets and European toymaker Playmobil similarly waste little time on whimsical detail.

“The issues I have with The Economist are mostly quibbles. The non-U.S. focus manifests itself in the writing style, which can result in continental readers tripping over expressions like ‘own goal.’ Every so often, it presents a story lead that’s almost deliberately obtuse (‘The Mother of Parliaments still cuts a lot of ice abroad. At home, however, its reputation for probity is waning as stories of financial misconduct multiply’).”

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