T H E  E C O N O M I S T

Planet earth is uniue in all the universe for its abundance and variety of animals, every one of which should be protected

Two important events organized by The Economist in 2025: AI Compute Summit May 22nd and the 10th Annual World Cancer Series Europe June.

1st - 4th MARCH 2022

The 9th edition of this global event is took place over four days, bringing together a very broad cross-section of the ocean community, from businesses to scientists, government, investors, and civil society. It featured six industry tracks: shipping, fishing, aquaculture, energy, tourism, plastics and chemicals. Keynote speeches were from US Secretary of State, John Kerry and HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco. Other subjects include financing ocean conservation projects (Blue Bonds) seaweed and ocean literacy, or awareness campaigns, and how they work to inspire action at all levels. Despite this, plastic in 2025 remains a major concern with the United Nations unable to agree a deal in 2024.

ABOUT THE ECONOMIST

The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in London. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843.

For historical reasons The Economist refers to itself as a newspaper, but each print edition appears on small glossy paper like a news magazine, and its YouTube channel is called EconomistMagazine. In 2006, its average weekly circulation was reported to be 1.5 million, about half of which were sold in the United States.

Britain  - Multimedia  -  World politics

The Economist claims that it "is not a chronicle of economics." Rather, it aims "to take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress." It takes an editorial stance which is supportive of free trade, globalisation, free immigration and some socially liberal causes.

It targets highly educated readers and claims an audience containing many influential executives and policy-makers.

The publication belongs to The Economist Group, half of which is owned by the Financial Times, a subsidiary of Pearson PLC. A group of independent shareholders, including many members of the staff and the Rothschild banking family of England, owns the rest.

A board of trustees formally appoints the editor, who cannot be removed without its permission. In addition, about two thirds of the 75 staff journalists are based in London, despite the global emphasis.

Founded in 1843, The Economist was first circulated by Scottish economist James Wilson to muster support for abolishing the British Corn Laws (1815–1846), a system of import tariffs. Over time, the newspaper's coverage expanded further into political economy and eventually began running articles on current events, finance, commerce, and British politics. Throughout the mid-to-late 20th century, it greatly expanded its layout and format, adding opinion columns, special reports, political cartoons, reader letters, cover stories, art critique, book reviews, and technology features. The paper is recognizable by its fire engine red masthead (nameplate) and illustrated, topical covers. Individual articles are written anonymously, with no byline, in order for the paper to speak as one collective voice. It is supplemented by its sister lifestyle magazine, 1843, and a variety of podcasts, films, and books. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK.

HISTORY

The Economist was founded by the British businessman and banker James Wilson in 1843, to advance the repeal of the Corn Laws, a system of import tariffs. A prospectus for the newspaper from 5 August 1843 enumerated thirteen areas of coverage that its editors wanted the publication to focus on:

1. Original leading articles, in which free-trade principles will be most rigidly applied to all the important questions of the day.

2. Articles relating to some practical, commercial, agricultural, or foreign topic of passing interest, such as foreign treaties.

3. An article on the elementary principles of political economy, applied to practical experience, covering the laws related to prices, wages, rent, exchange, revenue and taxes.

4. Parliamentary reports, with particular focus on commerce, agriculture and free trade.

5. Reports and accounts of popular movements advocating free trade.

6. General news from the Court of St James's, the Metropolis, the Provinces, Scotland, and Ireland.

7. Commercial topics such as changes in fiscal regulations, the state and prospects of the markets, imports and exports, foreign news, the state of the manufacturing districts, notices of important new mechanical improvements, shipping news, the money market, and the progress of railways and public companies.

8. Agricultural topics, including the application of geology and chemistry; notices of new and improved implements, state of crops, markets, prices, foreign markets and prices converted into English money; from time to time, in some detail, the plans pursued in Belgium, Switzerland, and other well-cultivated countries.

9. Colonial and foreign topics, including trade, produce, political and fiscal changes, and other matters, including exposés on the evils of restriction and protection, and the advantages of free intercourse and trade.

10. Law reports, confined chiefly to areas important to commerce, manufacturing, and agriculture.

11. Books, confined chiefly, but not so exclusively, to commerce, manufacturing, and agriculture, and including all treatises on political economy, finance, or taxation.

12. A commercial gazette, with prices and statistics of the week.

13. Correspondence and inquiries from the newspaper's readers.

Wilson described it as taking part in "a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress", a phrase which still appears on its imprint (US: masthead) as the publication's mission. It has long been respected as "one of the most competent and subtle Western periodicals on public affairs". It was cited by Karl Marx in his formulation of socialist theory because Marx felt the publication epitomised the interests of the bourgeoisie. He wrote that "the London Economist, the European organ of the aristocracy of finance, described most strikingly the attitude of this class." In 1915, revolutionary Vladimir Lenin referred to The Economist as a "journal that speaks for British millionaires". Additionally, Lenin stated that The Economist held a "bourgeois-pacifist" position and supported peace out of fear of revolution.

In the currency disputes of the mid-nineteenth century, the journal sided with the Banking School against the Currency School. It criticized the Bank Charter Act 1844 which restricted the amount of bank notes that the Bank of England could issue on the basis of Currency School policy encouraged by Lord Overstone, that eventually developed into monetarism. It blamed the 1857 financial crisis in Britain on 'a certain class of doctrinaires' who 'refer every commercial crisis and its disastrous consequences to "excessive issues of bank notes". It identified the causes of the financial crisis as variations in interest rates and a build-up of excess financial capital leading to unwise investments.

In 1920, the paper's circulation rose to 6,170. In 1934, it underwent its first major redesign. The current fire engine red nameplate was created by Reynolds Stone in 1959. In 1971, The Economist changed its large broadsheet format into a smaller magazine-style perfect-bound formatting. In 1981 the publication introduced a North American edition after publishing the British edition since 1843; its circulation had increased more than tenfold by 2010. In January 2012, The Economist launched a new weekly section devoted exclusively to China, the first new country section since the introduction of one on the United States in 1942.

In 1991, James Fallows argued in The Washington Post that The Economist used editorial lines that contradicted the news stories they purported to highlight. In 1999, Andrew Sullivan complained in The New Republic that it uses "marketing genius" to make up for deficiencies in original reporting, resulting in "a kind of Reader's Digest" for America's corporate elite. The Guardian wrote that "its writers rarely see a political or economic problem that cannot be solved by the trusted three-card trick of privatisation, deregulation and liberalisation".

In 2005, the Chicago Tribune named it the best English-language paper noting its strength in international reporting where it does not feel moved to "cover a faraway land only at a time of unmitigated disaster" and that it kept a wall between its reporting and its more conservative editorial policies. In 2008, Jon Meacham, former editor of Newsweek and a self-described "fan", criticised The Economist's focus on analysis over original reporting. In 2012, The Economist was accused of hacking into the computer of Justice Mohammed Nizamul Huq of the Bangladesh Supreme Court, leading to his resignation as the chairman of the International Crimes Tribunal. In August 2015, Pearson sold its 50% stake in the newspaper to the Italian Agnelli family's investment company, Exor, for £469 million (US$531 million) and the paper re-acquired the remaining shares for £182 million ($206 million).

SHAREHOLDERS

Pearson plc held a 50% shareholding via The Financial Times Limited until August 2015. At that time, Pearson sold their share in the Economist. The Agnelli family's Exor paid £287m to raise their stake from 4.7% to 43.4% while the Economist paid £182m for the balance of 5.04m shares which will be distributed to current shareholders. Aside from the Agnelli family, smaller shareholders in the company include Cadbury, Rothschild (21%), Schroder, Layton and other family interests as well as a number of staff and former staff shareholders. A board of trustees formally appoints the editor, who cannot be removed without its permission. The Economist Newspaper Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Economist Group. Sir Evelyn Robert de Rothschild was chairman of the company from 1972 to 1989.

Although The Economist has a global emphasis and scope, about two-thirds of the 75 staff journalists are based in the London borough of Westminster. However, due to half of all subscribers originating in the United States, The Economist has core editorial offices and substantial operations in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington D.C.

EDITORS

The editor-in-chief, commonly known as simply "the Editor", of The Economist is charged with formulating the paper's editorial policies and overseeing corporate operations. Since its 1843 founding, the editors have been the following:

- James Wilson: 1843–1857
- Richard Holt Hutton: 1857–1861
- Walter Bagehot: 1861–1877
- Daniel Conner Lathbury: 1877–1881 (jointly)
- Robert Harry Inglis Palgrave: 1877–1883 (jointly)
- Edward Johnstone: 1883–1907[48]
- Francis Wrigley Hirst: 1907–1916
- Hartley Withers: 1916–1921
- Sir Walter Layton: 1922–1938
- Geoffrey Crowther: 1938–1956
- Donald Tyerman: 1956–1965
- Sir Alastair Burnet: 1965–1974
- Andrew Knight: 1974–1986
- Rupert Pennant-Rea: 1986–1993
- Bill Emmott: 1993–2006
- John Micklethwait: 2006–2014
- Zanny Minton Beddoes: 2015–present

VOICE

Although it has many individual columns, by tradition and current practice the newspaper ensures a uniform voice - aided by the anonymity of writers -  throughout its pages, as if most articles were written by a single author, which may be perceived to display dry, understated wit, and precise use of language. The Economist's treatment of economics presumes a working familiarity with fundamental concepts of classical economics. For instance, it does not explain terms like invisible hand, macroeconomics, or demand curve, and may take just six or seven words to explain the theory of comparative advantage. Articles involving economics do not presume any formal training on the part of the reader and aim to be accessible to the educated layperson. It usually does not translate short French and German quotes or phrases but describes the business or nature of even well-known entities, writing, for example, "Goldman Sachs, an investment bank". The Economist is known for its extensive use of word play, including puns, allusions, and metaphors, as well as alliteration and assonance, especially in its headlines and captions. This can make it difficult to understand for those who are not native English speakers.

The Economist has traditionally and historically persisted in referring to itself as a "newspaper", rather than a "news magazine", due to its mostly cosmetic switch from broadsheet to perfect-binding format and its general focus on current affairs as opposed to specialist subjects. It is legally classified as a newspaper in Britain and the United States. Most databases and anthologies catalogue the weekly as a newspaper printed in magazine- or journal-format. The Economist differentiates and contrasts itself as a newspaper against their sister lifestyle magazine, 1843, which does the same in turn. Editor Zanny Minton Beddoes clarified the distinction in 2016, saying that "we call it a newspaper because it was founded in 1843, 173 years ago, [when] all [perfect-bound publications] were called newspapers."

ANONYMITY

The Economist's articles often take a definite editorial stance and almost never carry a byline. Not even the name of the editor is printed in the issue. It is a long-standing tradition that an editor's only signed article during their tenure is written on the occasion of their departure from the position. The author of a piece is named in certain circumstances: when notable persons are invited to contribute opinion pieces; when journalists of The Economist compile special reports (previously known as surveys); for the Year in Review special edition; and to highlight a potential conflict of interest over a book review. The names of The Economist editors and correspondents can be located on the media directory pages of the website. Online blog pieces are signed with the initials of the writer and authors of print stories are allowed to note their authorship from their personal web sites. One anonymous writer of The Economist observed: "This approach is not without its faults (we have four staff members with the initials 'J.P.', for example) but is the best compromise between total anonymity and full bylines, in our view." According to one academic study, the anonymous ethos of the weekly has contributed to strengthening three areas for The Economist: collective and consistent voice, talent and newsroom management, and brand strength.

The editors say this is necessary because "collective voice and personality matter more than the identities of individual journalists", and reflects "a collaborative effort". In most articles, authors refer to themselves as "your correspondent" or "this reviewer". The writers of the titled opinion columns tend to refer to themselves by the title (hence, a sentence in the "Lexington" column might read "Lexington was informed..."). American author and long-time reader Michael Lewis criticized the paper's editorial anonymity in 1991, labeling it a means to hide the youth and inexperience of those writing articles. Although individual articles are written anonymously, there is no secrecy over who the writers are, as they are listed on The Economist's website, which also provides summaries of their careers and academic qualifications. In 2009, Lewis included multiple Economist articles in his anthology about the 2007–2008 financial crisis, Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity.

John Ralston Saul describes The Economist as a newspaper that "hides the names of the journalists who write its articles in order to create the illusion that they dispense disinterested truth rather than opinion. This sales technique, reminiscent of pre-Reformation Catholicism, is not surprising in a publication named after the social science most given to wild guesses and imaginary facts presented in the guise of inevitability and exactitude. That it is the Bible of the corporate executive indicates to what extent received wisdom is the daily bread of a managerial civilization."

FEATURES

The Economist's primary focus is world events, politics and business, but it also runs regular sections on science and technology as well as books and the arts. Approximately every two weeks, the publication includes an in-depth special report (previously called surveys) on a given topic. The five main categories are Countries and Regions, Business, Finance and Economics, Science, and Technology. The newspaper goes to press on Thursdays, between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. GMT, and is available at newsagents in many countries the next day. It is printed at seven sites around the world.

Since July 2007, there has also been a complete audio edition of the paper available 9 pm London time on Thursdays. The audio version of The Economist is produced by the production company Talking Issues. The company records the full text of the newspaper in MP3 format, including the extra pages in the UK edition. The weekly 130 MB download is free for subscribers and available for a fee for non-subscribers. The publication's writers adopt a tight style that seeks to include the maximum amount of information in a limited space. David G. Bradley, publisher of The Atlantic, described the formula as "a consistent world view expressed, consistently, in tight and engaging prose".

THE WORLD AHEAD

The paper also produces two annual reviews and predictive reports titled The World In [Year] and The World If [Year] as part of their The World Ahead franchise. In both features, the newspaper publishes a review of the social, cultural, economic and political events that have shaped the year and will continue to influence the immediate future. The issue was described by the American think tank Brookings Institution as "The Economist's annual [150-page] exercise in forecasting". An Urdu-language version of The World In [Year] in collaboration with The Economist is being distributed by Jang Group in Pakistan.

CIRCULATION

Each of The Economist issues' official date range is from Saturday to the following Friday. The Economist posts each week's new content online at approximately 21:00 Thursday evening UK time, ahead of the official publication date. From July to December 2019, their average global print circulation was over 909,476, while combined with their digital presence, runs to over 1.6 million. However, on a weekly average basis, the paper can reach up to 5.1 million readers, across their print and digital runs. Across their social media platforms, it reaches an audience of 35 million, as of 2016.

In 1877, the publication's circulation was 3,700, and in 1920 it had risen to 6,000. Circulation increased rapidly after 1945, reaching 100,000 by 1970. Circulation is audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC). From around 30,000 in 1960 it has risen to near 1 million by 2000 and by 2016 to about 1.3 million. Approximately half of all sales (54%) originate in the United States with sales in the United Kingdom making 14% of the total and continental Europe 19%. Of its American readers, two out of three earn more than $100,000 a year. The Economist has sales, both by subscription and at newsagents, in over 200 countries. The Economist once boasted about its limited circulation. 

In the early 1990s it used the slogan "The Economist – not read by millions of people". Geoffrey Crowther, a former editor, wrote: "Never in the history of journalism has so much been read for so long by so few."

CENSORSHIP

Sections of The Economist criticising authoritarian regimes are frequently removed from the paper by the authorities in those countries. Like many other publications, The Economist is subjected to censorship in Iran. On 15 June 2006, Iran banned the sale of The Economist when it published a map labelling the Persian Gulf simply as Gulf - a choice that derives its political significance from the Persian Gulf naming dispute.

In a separate incident, the government of Zimbabwe went further and imprisoned The Economist's correspondent there, Andrew Meldrum. The government charged him with violating a statute on "publishing untruth" for writing that a woman was decapitated by supporters of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front party. The decapitation claim was retracted, and allegedly fabricated by the woman's husband. The correspondent was later acquitted, only to receive a deportation order. On 19 August 2013, The Economist disclosed that the Missouri Department of Corrections had censored its issue of 29 June 2013. According to the letter sent by the department, prisoners were not allowed to receive the issue because "1. it constitutes a threat to the security or discipline of the institution; 2. may facilitate or encourage criminal activity; or 3. may interfere with the rehabilitation of an offender".

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