The Economist - News, Podcasts Ratings and Reviews

Very unbiased, Economics is the perspective

I love this mag. I mean I really do (Econ Major at UCO btw). The only complaint I have is the excess of ads despite me paying the full price. Otherwise I think that this is the most worthwhile news source to date. A lot of people used to consider The Economist to be a conservative newspaper, but truly I tell you that it has done a 180 in 2020, they really just use economics alone as their guiding subject. They were supporting the vaccine when it was first out and mostly a political issue. They don’t pander to leftists or conservatives very often or really at all. Also they take good critical letters from respected individuals in their letters section. I truly enjoy disagreeing with an article and then finding someone smarter than me who wrote exactly why it is wrong, I could go on and on about this magazine. I love the formatting (shorter less fiddly articles, with all of the facts and as little opinion as possible) and I’m definitely a lifelong customer as long as that Economist quality is retained. I also really enjoy how the economist never says we think that (…) they always say this is the way to fix it or just state things how they are based on economic indications. There is actual evidence to back up economics, rather than some crazy conservative conspiracy theory, or a radical leftist rant. I don’t think they’re always right but this leads to a level of honesty. Excellent customer service also.

News, but better.

I never personally thought I’d be writing a review for a news app. I’m a 21 year old college student and generally skeptical of news organizations. After taking a class with a heavy usage of Economist articles, I see why my professor uses them in his lesson plans: they’re factual. After multiple months of contemplating whether or not to get a subscription, I finally pulled the trigger. The app is almost seamless, minus a few features I wish I could have in the app like a search option and a viewing history for easier access to show my friends the articles (I wish I could give you all a half star less for this, but I’ll go with 5 stars because I enjoy the content so much). I feel as though I can put my trust in The Economist because they deliver the news in a digestible and palatable way. I enjoy being able to audibly listen to articles and understanding what’s going on in the world.

If you’re tired of traditional American news companies like NBC, Fox, CBS, CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and many others, then try out The Economist. The Economist offers a new level of detail, honesty, factuality, and trust that I appreciate when it comes to news reporting. I intend to resubscribe for more after my introductory subscription. The Economist (as far as I understand) does not do editorials or opinion pieces. They offer well thought out news reporting and a deeper understanding of current events.

Feedback on v3 update

Great app overall. Putting three stars to elevate some of the issues I encountered in the new version. I’m using the app only in dark mode, if that’s helpful context. 1. Espresso is gone. Someone else mentioned here as well. 2. App state is lost too quickly. My reading style is to jump back and forth between this app and others (e.g. switch to Wikipedia mid-article and come back afterwards to resume the same article). Currently, the app cold starts into the main menu after being the background for about a minute. This is a significant annoyance for me. 3. Read-state check marks were reset locally after the update. These were great to keep track of my backlog in recent few weekly issues. If this is a one time thing, probably I can bear the disturbance however. 4. Read-state check marks are less visible (in dark mode) on the weekly tab compared to v2. This makes it harder to find unread articles in weekly issues. 5. Articles in daily view has advertisement boxes with no advertisements in them. They show empty gray space. While I’m here, I also would like to see the read-state synced to my account server-side. Having them local only is the only reason I read the Economist on just one device, and not iPad and phone together for instance. I hope this is helpful! Thank you for the great app the dev team! i

Developer Response ,

Thanks for the detailed feedback! Espresso should now be reinstated; please make sure you're on the latest version and let us know if you're still not seeing it. Apologies for not keeping your "read" check marks with the update - as you surmise, it's a one-off and they should now work going forward. I'll pass on the rest of your comments and we'll see whether we can make some additional improvements; thanks again for taking the time to provide this valuable information. - Laura

Excellent

The Economist is my favorite news magazine and the app is easy to use and well designed. it is certainly one of the most reliable sources of analysis and information for me. However there are two areas which I find which the Economist fails to take its usual broad-minded approach of treating both sides of the issue., the first is the debate around climate change. The Economist has decided to editorially to accept the often one-sided claims of so-called climate alarmists. Although this is obviously an area where there is robust debate, tht Economist usually fails to provide the other side of the debate, which does not see the world was facing an imminent catastrophe due to climate change. There is simply too much evidence against the alarmist view to justify it being ignored. The other area has to do with race relations in the United States, in which parallel to the climate debate that usually takes a one-sided view, and fails to consider seriously the vast amounts of evidence rejecting the thesis of widespread racism in the United States. Nonetheless, it is brilliantly, written, engaging, and in most cases, except for those, I’ve indicated a real education which I learned from every week.

Improving but still poor for offline access.

- I wish I could download all the images in advance for offline access, like I can for the text and the audio, and like I could with the classic app. At least the image streaming works better after the latest fixes. It is a huge data hog and increased my phone bill, so streaming over cellular isn’t a good option for me.
- Audio needs a bit of love. Needs a 1.25x setting which would be the sweet spot for speed of playback. It frequently starts playing at the wrong speed. 15-second skip back should be the default back button for use in my car, rather than skip to the previous article. Narration sounds good.
- It remembers where I was reading, but only one article... I can’t swipe to the next one in the weekly.
- When re-finding my place, Clicking on the hamburger menu to find sections and then clicking on the section often doesn’t work. Other times the section headers are rendered offscreen, maybe after switching from landscape to portrait mode.

Balanced Journalism and a Great App

I started reading The Economist at around 16 (yes, really). It was recommended reading for passing my British army entrance tests and I’ve been a fan ever since. The idea of truly unbiased journalism is a myth - as soon as one picks up a pen or a camera, they are biased. What is included or omitted is as much a part of bias as what opinion is deliberately conveyed. That said, I think The Economist does an excellent job of being balanced; and when it is taking a side, it says so - elections, wars, major debates. I particularly like the lack of affiliation of each piece and the ‘voice’ of the paper, I find it reduces grandstanding and personal politics (anyone willing to write for a paper that deliberately doesn’t give the author credit is alright by me).

Then there’s the app. It can be read daily as a source of news or you can read the weekly edition ‘cover-to-cover’ as I do.

If you’re looking for a great one-stop-shop for informed news, The Economist app is it.

Bugs in latest release

I have loved this app and made it my primary means of accessing the content for more than one year now. With the latest update the audio playback seems ruined. Though the audio opens with each new issue and appears to automatically download, the playback takes several seconds, almost a minute in most cases to begin. It is almost as if the download restarts each time I open the app, and the audio files are not actually saved. Moreover the playback lasts for about half of an article, and if my screen turns off or I lock the phone, the playback and the app seem to crash. I am not sure what changed, but the stability of the app is terrible all of a sudden. Particularly with regard to the audio playback.
I do like the new arrangement and layout of the ability to access the different audio articles, but there is no point if the articles won’t play.

Developer Response ,

We're sorry to hear that you're having issues with the app. If possible please share the device and operating system version you are using and your exact steps in the app when this issue occurred, via email to appfeedback@economist.com.

Alternatively we'd love to reach out directly to ask a few questions by phone - in which case please share a contact number to the email address (not as a response here). This will help us fix the issue quickly.

These people are excellent at their jobs

I was compelled by a recent piece on the history of Russia’s attitudes towards Ukraine to post an enthusiastic, if disappointingly thinly answered, paean to the journalists of the Economist on my Facebook page. To be able to combine history, journalism and a spot of political philosophy in such a piece, in readable and lucid format, without dumbing down or preaching, and to do this sort of thing in five or six pieces week in, week out, takes more than impressive talent. It must demand application, which is belied by the impression of effortlessness it conveys. This, my friends, is real journalism. And I don’t always agree with what it is saying (although I must confess disproportionate alignment with content on an ongoing basis). Subscribing digitally, after years of enjoying the paper version and then enduring a long absence, was a very, very good idea. I flagellate myself for not reading more. The Economist deftly assuages some of these feelings.

The only news magazine worth taking!

I have taken the Economist for 30+ years. Nowhere else will I get news from around the world that has both economic considerations and political in depth but accessible. Once while coming back from the Middle East, there was a small article entitled, The moonshine capital of America, Franklin, County, Virginia. It was an accurate portrayal of the culture of SW Virginia. Add this to what is happening economically in equatorial Africa or Southeast Asia and you have quite a comprehensive mix of news and analysis. I’ve accepted the fact that I cannot read everything each week in the Economist so I never run out of articles of interest! My son reads the Economist on line and dedicates Thursday evening to the latest news. We both find the editorial commentary to be balanced and any biases transparent! This magazine is a refreshing breath of air in a world with so much unhelpful spin and fabrication!

Audio edition unusable

Excellent content, terrible app. I use the app (and subscribe to The Economist) solely to listen to the audio edition. Usually I listen while doing something else: driving, riding a motorcycle, in the gym, on an airplane, etc. Usually I am also using other apps such as for navigation , and often with no or intermittent internet access. In older versions of the app, this was not a problem. There is an option to download the audio file and play it back through the app. However, updates over the past year have made this feature virtually unusable. Often it will randomly stop playing, and I need to pull over, restart the app (which restarts from the beginning of the edition) and then advance it to the right article. Sometimes it just doesn’t play at all. Why it would have such difficulty playing an already downloaded file is unclear, but I suspect there is some sort of over-aggressive anti-piracy feature interfering with smooth playback. If this is not resolved and the app remains unusable I will have no reason to maintain a subscription.

Developer Response ,

Thanks for your feedback and sorry that you've been having these problems. We're aware of performance issues with audio and we're working on resolving them, so I hope you'll find your experience improves soon. - Laura