The economist

Thursday

Christopher Schaefer

Semafor’s Justin Smith is going global

On January 4, Justin Smith announced that he was stepping down as CEO of Bloomberg Media to found a startup. He would pursue a “new kind of global news media company,” one that would serve “unbiased journalism to a truly global audience.” Ben Smith, the New York Times media columnist, resigned on the same day. The two Smiths were joining together to work on what was known at the time only as “Project Coda.” In the flurry of press coverage that followed, some hubristic claims were bandied about. The era of the foreign correspondent was over, Justin insisted. Throughout the world, there were 200 million college-educated, English-speaking professionals who were underserved by current news media, Ben maintained.

Justin Smith

Tuesday

Taylor Millard

Democracy and economic freedom are in decline

The first report cards on democracy and economic freedom for 2021 are out and the results are not good. Economic Intelligence Unit, the sister company of The Economist magazine, found that last year’s Democracy Index had fallen by almost a tenth of a percent. That’s the biggest drop in the index’s 15-year history. The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, meanwhile, saw a similar albeit larger decline of 1.6 points out of 100. Heritage looked at economic policies and conditions in 177 countries while the Democracy Index looked at 167 countries. Both reports blame government-enforced COVID restrictions for the declines.

mask

Thursday

Josiah Gogarty

The Economist should be more like Walt Whitman

America is complicated. It’s hard to predict what it’ll do next, despite all the time and money spent observing it. Not without reason is Walt Whitman — with his long beard, loose morals and love of ambiguity — its national poet. In an election year, plumbing the country’s mood is especially crucial. But that doesn’t make it any easier. Once bitten in 2016, the liberal portion of America’s establishment is twice shy, and terrified about slipping into the same complacency over Biden’s chances as it did over Clinton’s. While not an American institution, the Economist fits neatly into the same footloose, cosmopolitan club as the more neoliberal-minded of Democrats.

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