Economists on The Economist

Economist-bloggers have been venting their grievances with The Economist the past few days. Funny and generally pretty spot-on.

Dani Rodrik, former Economist devotee, opens things up:

But then I realized that the more I knew about a subject, the less The Economist was making sense. Its one thing to be opinionated, another to be misinformed and arrogant at the same time.

Chris Blattman, another former Economist-lover, says Amen:

Dani puts his finger on the true cause: the more I knew about a subject (development, Africa, civil wars, etc.) the more I shuddered to read the thing. I often have the same complaint with coverage in other news sources, but Dani hits on something especially vexing: the high-falootin tone.

Henry from Crooked Timber, who I guess is a political scientist, joins the pile-on:

The Economist flatters readers who aren’t quite intelligent enough to realize how shallow it is into thinking that they are more intelligent than they are because they read it.

YouNotSneaky provides a helpful guide on how to read the magazine. The comments are good too.