Friday, December 03, 2021

Judith Sloan wrong (what a surprise)

Hey, have a look at this article from Judith Sloan in the rubbish Australian Spectator from July 2021, whining about how she can't read the Economist now because it's too "woke/green".   

Quite the compendium of bad right wing takes, such as:

Brexit – OK, anti-Brexit – has been another pet topic for the magazine. Its previous measured tone on matters European was no more. The Economist tried to fight the will of the British people to be free of the shackles of the European Union. ‘This deal must never be done’ was its motto.

Just think of the impact on the British economy. London’s financial hub would be decimated; living standards would slump; and pharmaceutical and other necessary goods would no longer be available.

Funny, but the "will of the British people" has now dropped to about 37% thinking it was right to leave Europe.  (A YouGov poll has it bouncing around the same figure, so it seems accurate.)

What about this curious statement:

Sensing perhaps that readers were tiring of the incessant Covid fearmongering, in recent issues, the Economist has been trying to change its tune. It has acknowledged the risk that media companies face in the near future of an ‘attention recession’.

It has actually put out some very useful comparative figures showing excess death rates over the past eighteen months for a large number of countries. These figures are not contaminated by inaccuracies of reporting in relation to cause of death.

What they show is that, apart from some countries in South America mainly, most countries have not experienced excess death rates – or have done so for a month or so. In fact, many countries have experienced negative excess death rates – below what would have been expected.

 I don't subscribe to the magazine, but Googling the topic, I have the strongest suspicion that this misrepresents (or misreads) whatever she was reading. 

Update:  amusingly, I see that some people think the Economist has gone right wing, at least on trans/identity issues:



1 comment:

GMB said...

The Economist is a Rothschild vehicle. She may as well be reading the protocols.