Time or The Economist?

Fabio

Well lads,

I'm considering a subscription to one of these magazines through student-subscription-services.ie (dunno if anyone here has dealt with them?) but I'm not sure which to go for at the moment.

Time is bit cheaper and I am more familiar with it but is The Economist a better magazine?

I'd prefer to have a nice mix of fact and comment, nothing to right wing either haha though I realise both will probably lean more towards right than left.

I've been told The Eco is a bit more serious and full of content. I'd like something I can realistically get through in a week too.

Which would people here recommend?

EamonnKeane

Time focuses heavily on American affairs, the ec. has more of a global view

Chips Lovell

The Economist is better by a mile. More content, better writing and better informed.

Dublin's Finest

The Economist, by a distance. Tends to be a little bit irrational on the EU from time to time. Charlemagne is still a good column though.

gaf1983

I would agree about The Economist being better by a mile, I would agree with DublinWriter about their strong opinions on the EU, and I agree with EamonnKeane about Time's American focus - the first ever copy of it I read springs to mind, it was their USA 94 preview edition when they explained to Americans Europe's infatuation with sawker.

For a while now I have subscribed to The Economist. There are numerous reasons why. Here are some of them:

• Its highly divisive, yet eloquently expressed opinions.
• The fact that it consistently refers to itself as "this newspaper", and does so in the third person, even though it looks like a magazine, smells like a magazine, is published like a magazine, etc
• The random one-off articles it contains, such as the state that picture-book publishing is in at this moment in the UK, how the poker world is becoming more dominated by youngsters who have only ever played internet poker, or the trials and tribulations faced by Native Americans who want to go into business in Native American nations in the US of A. In other words, the kind of articles that you won't really find elsewhere, yet if you met someone who had a particular interest in whatever topic was the focus of the article, you would be able to hold a 10-15 minute rational conversation on said topic with the aforementioned someone.
• The fact that they rarely use words like aformentioned. In other words the articles are written in fairly plain, understandable English, and they pride themselves on this.
• And the fact that most of their articles concerning actual economics go way over my head.
• Their blatant anti-EU bias, at times.
• The photos they choose, and the captions therewith. An example: in an article a while back on declining suicide rates in the UK, they featured a picture of some cliffs. The caption: "Not seeing much action lately."
• The ads. Either in the recruitment section: "You will be qualified to a PhD level and have up to 10 years experience managing some ridiculously high-level other people at some really high level in another organisation so why you would want to bother seeking a job in the recruitment section of a magazine is beyond most people. The other ads, that just presume the entire readership is made up of top-level executives who wouldn't know how to fly economy was if it hit them in the face. A tad ironic that, given the fact that it's called The Economist.
• The fact that the Middle East is lumped in with Africa. And Canada is lumped in with Latin America. Is this an indication of the level of respect "this newspaper" holds said regions/countries in?
• Their choice of fonts/page layouts.

My main gripe with it is the fact that the articles are written anonymously. Sometimes it would be nice to find out the background of it's journalists/contributors, whether they have any particular agenda, or what other works they've had published.