Unearned Prestige: The Economist and The War In Ukraine
“Pretend you are God.”
– Editor’s advice on how to write like the Economist.[1]
August 23, 2024
In a confusing and turbulent world, where do we find accurate, relevant, gold-standard journalism? News that is independent, not skewed by partisan or national interests, informed by the value of human rights, and capable of enhancing mutual understanding, opening the door to solutions and peace-building.
Presumably seeking comprehensive and reasonably objective international news, many readers (current circulation, over 1.4 million) turn to the Economist (TE) – a self-described newspaper, in weekly magazine format, founded in Britain in 1843. While historically a voice of the emerging Victorian-era financial class, its current readership in the US reportedly skews slightly to the left,[2] as does its reputed editorial standpoint.[3] That may be understandable. It calls itself “liberal” (albeit more in the European free market rather than American welfare state sense). TE is highly critical of Trump and populism, and takes climate change seriously, unlike many conservative American media. A status symbol for commuter train readers and executive aspirants, the newspaper offers a timely, convenient, readable overview of global developments in politics, business, science and arts. Its data-packed multi-coloured maps and graphs are widely acclaimed. Some of my friends, generously providing back copies, regard TE as an authoritative oracle on global issues.
But skimming its coverage of various issues, including the war in Ukraine, I became doubtful its prestige is warranted. After reading an eye-opening recent history of The Economist by Alexander Zevin (Liberalism at Large, cited in the epigraph above), I devised a collaborative project with three colleagues (named above) with academic and/or non-profit affiliations.[4] We looked at credible sources critical of NATO’s official line on Ukraine, notably War in Ukraine, a concise primer by Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin and journalist Nicolas J.S. Davies,[5] as well as commentaries by social scientists like John Mearsheimer, John Bellamy Foster and others. And we dove into TE itself, identifying 405 relevant articles published between January 2022, on the eve of war, and July 2023, shortly after a NATO summit.[6] We paid particular attention to editorials or “leaders,” and to the sources — the people and institutions quoted — in a sample of every tenth news report, a total of forty.
CONTENDING NARRATIVES
Consumers of mainstream media in the US or UK are familiar with the standard view of the war in Ukraine. In this view – call it the NATO Narrative –, the war results from Russia’s unjustified, brutal and unprovoked attack against a much smaller and fragile democratic country. The invasion is seen as a “war of choice” by a ruthless dictator, Russian President Vladimir Putin, one motivated by his paranoid psychology, domestic political problems, hatred of a functioning democracy on Russian borders, contempt for Ukrainian nationality, and/or his imperial ambitions. Unless stopped by military force, Putin’s forces would not only conquer Ukraine but drive further west, seeking to restore the former Soviet empire. Trying to negotiate a settlement with Putin would constitute appeasement. The historical parallel, sometimes rendered explicit, is the West’s capitulation to Hitler’s territorial demands at Munich, leading to the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and then World War II. The West should keep arming Ukraine until victory, while avoiding a direct confrontation with NATO forces that could trigger nuclear holocaust.
The NATO Narrative is no mere fabrication. War crimes, internal repression, ruthless mercenaries, political assassinations, international law violations – the Putin regime ticks the boxes.
But it’s a dangerously simplistic black-and-white story. Leaving aside Putin’s own propaganda or far-fetched theories like biological weapons labs in Ukraine, there is an evidence-based counter-narrative. It suggests that neither NATO nor Ukraine’s politicians are entirely innocent in this dreadful conflict’s escalation. Let’s call this the Dissident Discourse.
The NATO narrative portrays Ukraine as a functioning Western-style democracy, but downplays some of its more unsavory characteristics. Yet, while Putin’s claim that Ukraine needs “de-Nazification” is surely an exaggeration, extreme nationalist and white supremacist forces do exert outsize influence in the country’s politics and military. Far right pressure was one reason the Kyiv government failed to implement the Minsk II peace accords after 2014, intended to end the civil war between Russian-speaking separatists in eastern and southern regions against western-oriented Ukrainian speakers.[7] An example of militant ultra-nationalism is the Azov Regiment, accurately described before the war as neo-Nazi, but after the invasion hailed by The Economist – in a lionizing interview with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelinskyy (April 2/22) – as the heroic defenders of the city of Mariupul.
In the Dissident Discourse, however, Ukraine’s agony,can’t be separated from the clashing geopolitical designs of the great powers, including the U.S. A pivotal moment was the 2014 overthrow of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. Western media, including The Economist, generally described this is a popular uprising, starting in Kyiv’s Maidan square, against a “crooked thug” (Feb. 26/22), a “grasping pro-Russian president” (June 24/23). The Dissident Discourse suggests a more complex reality. TE ignored the active role of the U.S., through Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and the U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, in encouraging the opposition and handpicking future government leaders.[8] Maidan was as much a coup as a popular revolt, displacing a corrupt but democratically elected (in 2010) president – which didn’t stop TE from claiming that “the Maidan protests established democracy in 2014” (April 2/22).
Moreover, for the Dissident Discourse, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was not “unprovoked”. Rather, the U.S. strategic “great game” is to arm Ukraine and use a bloody proxy war to “weaken” Russia (as U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin later described his government’s goal) and to bring about regime change.[9] Indeed, according to Ukraine’s press in March 2022, after the invaders suffered initial setbacks, Russia and Ukraine began negotiating a potential peace deal, with Turkish mediation. But British and American leaders, including U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Kyiv in April 2022, intervened to press Zelinsky to carry on the fight.[10] Western news media did not amplify this episode, until Putin repeated it in an interview with far right broadcaster Tucker Carlson in February 2024 – after which, most media dismissed it as Russian propaganda.
Consider what US and NATO policy must look like from Moscow. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO added new members (and nuclear-capable weapons) ever closer to the Russian border, violating promises made to then-president Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not move “one inch to the east”. Rather than accept Gorbachev’s vision of a transatlantic European home from Lisbon to Vladivostok, NATO remilitarized.[11] Russians across the political spectrum opposed Ukraine’s potential membership in NATO, and many Western authorities, including the esteemed diplomat George F. Kennan, warned of future repercussions from NATO’s disregard of Russian “red lines”.
Instead of cashing in a peace dividend for civilian spending, Washington sought to offset its fading global economic sway through flexing its military might. That included waging war in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, and pursuing nuclear primacy through developing first-strike capacity – an inherently more destabilizing strategy than MAD, “mutually assured destruction”. In 2002, 2019 and 2020, the US unilaterally withdrew from nuclear arms limitations treaties that hindered developing the first-strike option.[12]
In this Dissident Discourse, the appropriate historical analogy is not Munich, but the Cuban missile crisis. Invoking its unilateral claim to hegemony over the western hemisphere, embodied in the Monroe Doctrine, the US administration in 1962 risked thermonuclear war in order to force the Soviet Union to remove missiles from Cuba. The crisis was resolved not by continued escalation, but by a compromise – the US withdrew missiles from Turkey – kept secret for decades.
The above summaries barely sketch the complex forces at play. Could global citizens turn to the Economist for context and explanation, from differing credible perspectives, to make sense of a senseless conflict?
On the eve of war, the newspaper seemed to promise such journalism. It published invited online essays interpreting the conflict, including one from John Mearsheimer identifying NATO’s eastward expansion as a primary cause.
But that was it. Once Russian tanks rolled in, TE‘s reportage, while elegantly written, seemed as lopsided as any warmongering tabloid.
ECONO-MYSTIFYING EDITORIALS?
The themes of TE‘s editorials essentially parallel the NATO Narrative.
First, Putin is a dangerous aggressor. He has launched an invasion motivated by imperial ambition — “restoring the glory of the Russian empire” (March 12/22). He has threatened to use atomic weapons, threats that have “overturned the nuclear order” (June 4/22). No mention of America’s longer-standing and destabilizing pursuit of nuclear primacy.
Second, Ukraine must ultimately win the war, and it needs the West’s military and economic help to do so. Escalation is the necessary response. American diplomacy has “recovered” from the Trump years and is offering “wholehearted leadership of NATO”, while Germany has “overturned decades of timid defence policy” (March 26/22). “The door to a future diplomatic settlement” when both sides are ready “should be left open” but a ceasefire now “would be deeply disadvantageous to Ukraine, halting its momentum” (Nov. 19/22).
Third, Ukraine can win the war. Editorials were initially optimistic about Ukraine’s resilience and military prowess. But as the tides of war changed from successful defence of Kyiv to Ukraine’s unsuccessful counter-offensive in 2023 to apparent stalemate, increasingly strident editorials called for accelerated Western military aid. The West “is still too cautious about supplying weapons to reverse…Putin’s invasion” (Jan. 14/23), and should rapidly supply tanks and jet fighters (April 29/23).
Fourth, conversely, Putin isn’t as strong as he might seem. TE highlighted, even speculatively, signs of political instability, isolation or battlefield failure by Russia. “A war in Ukraine would have terrible consequences, especially for Russia” (Jan. 29/22)…”Are the sanctions working?…isolation from Western markets will cause havoc in Russia” (August 27/22). “The Wagner mutiny exposes the Russian tyrant’s growing weakness” (July 1/23) – weeks before the mercenary force’s leadership was killed in a suspicious plane crash and its threat to Putin eliminated. “Vladimir Putin’s war is failing. The West should help it fail faster” (Sept. 17/22). Not until December 2, 2023, after nearly two years of pontificating on Putin’s weaknesses, did an Economist leader concede that Putin seems to be winning. That was a consideration, not for re-evaluating its triumphalist stance, but for calling on Europe’s NATO partners to do more.
Fifth, war is not the worst option. Somehow, from the economic and human wreckage, “a stable and successful country could emerge from the trauma of Russia’s invasion” (April 9/22). TE downplayed the threat of nuclear escalation, since “even a dictator with an overdeveloped sense of his own destiny has a nose for survival and the ebb and flow of power” (Feb. 26/22). A TE “briefing” (backgrounder) detailed the “ladder of escalation”, as outlined by nuclear strategist Herman Kahn – identified by TE as an inspiration for the satirical film Dr. Strangelove – that could lead to nuclear omnicide. But while sensibly advocating that NATO avoid direct conflict with Putin’s forces, it portrayed Russian aggression as the sole threat, ignoring US first-strike strategy and NATO’s refusal to renounce the first use of nuclear weapons. TE argued that his nuclear rhetoric “gives Mr Putin an advantage that he will press until he is firmly pressed back against” (April 9/22).
Sixth, NATO is a “defensive alliance” (Feb. 26/22) with honorable motives. “Western leaders have wisely insisted that Ukraine should determine its own objectives. Ukrainians are dying in a conflict all about the right of sovereign countries to decide their own future” (April 9/22).
Decide their own future? Consider that claim in light of The Economist’s history, discussed below.
SOURCES: WHO GETS TO SPEAK?
News reports during the first 18 months of the war generally reflected those themes. Narratives and sources shape each other. The newspaper’s sense of what the story is about influences who is considered qualified and appropriate to quote. Conversely, quotes are blocks that build and legitimize the narrative; they are all the more important in a journal, like TE, not known for doing investigative journalism. In our sample of articles, over 80 percent (33 of 40) included at least one source from Western countries – European NATO members, the US, and a handful of fellow travelers, like Finland. Ukrainians were cited in 19, Russians in 16. Just 13 had voices from the global South, anti-Western regimes, and/or international institutions like the UN.
Thus, TE defines the conflict through Western eyes, more than those of the direct combatants. Not surprising, given its historical roots and publication base in the U.K. and its increasing orientation towards an American readership.[13]
Perhaps more significant is the type of sources who anchor TE’s reportage. Over three-quarters of the articles (31 of 40) quoted official State sources – heads of government, senior government officials or politicians, diplomats, national intelligence agencies, security advisers, occasional regional or city officials, or countries-by-name. Sixty percent cited independent academics, research institutes, analysts, consultants or experts. Most of these were from American or British institutions; a few were experts with non-European names but working in the West.
Over a third (15 of 40) accessed military sources, mainly senior officers, often retired and thus, presumably, able to speak relatively freely. Very few were rank-and-file soldiers doing the killing and dying.
Civilians were cited in 11 of 40 pieces – over a quarter, more than typical war reportage. Most of these were Ukrainian, the country under attack. Stories of how ordinary Ukrainians were coping, contributing to the war effort, or suffering from Russian attacks (like the atrocities in Bucha, near Kyiv) help to humanize the victims and to promote sympathy to their plight. More journalism on the perspectives and experiences of those most impacted by war would surely be welcome. But would the Economist devote the same attention to victims of aggression by a Western ally? Or are there double standards in news about victims, as Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman have argued: victims of the West’s enemies are “worthy” of sympathy and coverage, while victims of Western allies (in say, Palestine) are “unworthy”.[14] Consider two relevant studies of America’s press. Compared to Iraqis after the US invasion, Ukrainian civilians were quoted nearly eight times as often;[15] and the New York Times had far harsher language for Russian “massacres” in Ukraine than for Israel’s very similar “attacks” and “errors” in Gaza.[16]
For a journal oriented heavily oriented towards economic affairs, just 7 of 40 articles quoted corporations or businesses. Only two of those cited firms from the defence sector, whose wartime stock value skyrocketed.[17]
Thirteen articles quoted news media, journalists or bloggers, including the Economist itself in 6 pieces, and several Russian outlets, usually described as state media or propagandists, a description not applied to Western or Ukrainian media.
These sourcing patterns suggest journalism through a “war” lens from the start – not diplomacy, environment, or conflict analysis with a broader historical and human scope. That’s important, because such conventional conflict reporting focuses on physical violence between “our” side and “theirs,” and tends to make military intervention and escalation seem the most rational response. By contrast, a new approach called “peace journalism” has developed tools for helping society to recognize and value opportunities for nonviolent conflict resolution.[18]
The combination of Western geopolitical bias and war/violence orientation helps explain why so many relevant voices are absent from our sample: just a few religious leaders, non-western international agencies, non-governmental organizations, ordinary Russians, humanitarian organizations, or cultural figures like writers. And no peace activists, Ukrainian dissidents, international courts, or (after Mearsheimer) academic critics of Western policy.
IS THE ECONOMIST A PROPAGANDA TOOL FOR RULING ELITES?
In their well-known propaganda model, critical scholars Herman and Chomsky argued that the American press functions to frame issues and select sources in a way that reflects the narrow range of opinion within the dominant elites.[19] Several structural filters, such as corporate ownership, advertising dependence and institutional source bias, ensure that the news media generally “manufacture consent” to ruling elite policies and worldviews.
Despite its oversimplification and the cacophony of voices emerging in the internet era, this model still tells us something about the power and biases of corporate media, whose reach now extends into the digital realm.
But reading Alexander Zevin’s detailed history of The Economist, from its origins in Britain as a beacon of economic liberalism, suggests that the model doesn’t quite fit. For one thing, its “unusual ownership structure” gives the senior editor a great deal of autonomy from business pressure and the Economist Group’s board of directors.[20] The most important filter may be the newspaper’s own institutional history and ideology.
Moreover, The Economist isn’t a reflection of ruling elites – it’s part of them. That’s evident in many ways: the migration of senior Economist journalists to positions in high finance, regulatory agencies, government cabinets, intelligence services; clubby meetings with the likes of Ronald Reagan and other neoliberal politicians; heavy recruitment from Oxford and Cambridge universities; and TE‘s historical capacity not only to defend the ideology of economic liberalism, but to mold and fashion its very principles.
Consider its editorial performance in recent history, as Zevin summarizes it. Unconditional support for US military involvement in Vietnam, with coverage structured by the Cold War frame of communism versus liberalism. Offering articles “more like pep talks than dispassionate analyses.”[21] Dismissing the My Lai massacre as an isolated incident. Justifying government lying after Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers during the war. More recently, condemning the whistleblowers – Brad (now Chelsea) Manning, Julian Assange, Ed Snowden – who revealed the extent and crimes of the National Security State.[22]
The paper has whitewashed other massacres by pro-Western governments, like the Indonesian regime’s slaughter of hundreds of thousands of allegedly leftist peasants (1965) and its invasion of East Timor (from 1975 on). TE helped prepare public opinion for the violent overthrow of Chilean president Salvador Allende (1973), systematically emphasizing negative news about his democratically elected socialist government. Political correspondent Robert Moss, who used TE as a cover for paid intelligence agency work, directly connected the Chilean military with the free market economists who advised the brutal post-Allende junta.
During the 1970s, TE mooted preparing plans to bomb and invade Cuba for its support of leftist rebels in Angola, called for swift retribution against the Iranian hostage-takers, and advocated the arming of right-wing rebels or governments in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
Its hawkish drum-banging continued after the first Cold War. After Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, TE called for war before president George H.W. Bush did. After the 9/11 attacks, the newspaper again called for war, without identifying against whom, where, for what goals.[23] It applauded each stage of the buildup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
No wonder a retiring foreign editor, to nervous laughter from his colleagues, joked that “The Economist never met a war it didn’t like.”[24]
Most relevant to coverage of the Ukraine war, TE called for the end of d̩tente with the Soviet Union in 1979, urging unilateral re-armament by the West. When the USSR collapsed, the newspaper took a hard line Рno Marshall Plan for Russia, no compromise with its reformist leader Gorbachev, no strategic reciprocity to dismantle NATO as well as the Warsaw Pact; to the contrary, NATO should expand eastward.[25]
TOWARDS JOURNALISM FOR PEACE?
We aren’t accusing TE of widespread factual inaccuracy. Rather, it works ideologically through wording choices, selectivity and omissions – of contexts, sources and events (like Boris Johnson’s negotiation-quashing visit to Kyiv, or the ultimate surrender of the Ukrainian soldiers who famously told a Russian ship to “go fuck yourself”). TE‘s conceptual framing of the conflict adopts the dichotomy increasingly used in Western security discourse – autocracy versus liberalism (and sometimes, democracy, which has different connotations). It’s a flexible framework that provides a glow of righteousness to the West’s militarization and its active role in the great power rivalry that has arguably generated a “New Cold War”.[26] That simplistic framework also accommodates undemocratic countries that accept the U.S.-dominated “rules-based international order”.[27]
Nor do we justify Putin’s regime or aggression, or deny Ukraine’s right of self-defence. Rather, we seek journalism that offers readers more comprehensive analyses of conflict from diverse perspectives. In effect, TE operates as a kind of conversational partner with anglo-American policy and economic elites, both advising them and translating their worldviews to broader publics. In doing so, it often provides journalism that incentivizes conflict escalation – that is, “war” journalism as defined by media scholars, focusing on physical violence, elite sources, the other side’s propaganda and misdeeds, and a two-sided framing of conflicts.[28]
As a critical antidote, the world desperately needs more peace journalism, highlighting opportunities for peaceful conflict resolution, prioritizing the human impact of conflicts, amplifying the voices of civilians and marginalized groups, and analyzing the multiple sources of, and potential exits from, violent conflict.
An exemplary case is Democracy Now‘s coverage of the G7 meeting in Hiroshima, emphasizing the lessons of nuclear warfare and advocating for peace in Ukraine.[29]
At its best, peace journalism fosters empathy, dialogue, hope, and more comprehensive understanding of conflicts. By critically analyzing and exposing misinformation and propaganda from all sides, peace journalism builds more informed publics, encouraging accountability and transparency, as well as helping to break the cycle of conflict. How to nurture peace journalism on an international scale is an ongoing question. In the meantime, another forthcoming study by the authors will further explore peace journalism as a robust framework for more ethical and effective conflict reporting.
Written with assistance from Danielle Agron (Simon Fraser University), Henar Canilang (Simon Fraser University), Farrukh Chishtie (Peaceful Society, Science and Innovation Foundation; and University of British Columbia).
End Notes
[1] From Alexander Zevin, Liberalism at Large: The World According to the Economist (London, New York: Verso, 2021), p. 5.
[2] Where News Audiences Fit on the Political Spectrum | Pew Research Center
[4] We gratefully acknowledge assistance from retired SFU professor Sheila Delaney and funding from SFU’s work/study program.
[5] Medea Benjamin & Nicolas J.S. Davies, War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict (New York/London, OR Books, 2022),
[6] The corpus of articles derives from physical/print copies of The Economist, where available, and digital copies available in ProQuest.com, otherwise. The keywords “Russia”, “Ukraine” or “Russia-Ukraine war” in the title or subheadings were the filters. A total of 405 articles (after eliminating 3 duplicates) were found between January 2022 and July 24, 2023.
[7][7] Benjamin and Davies, p. 58.
[8] Benjamin and Davies, pp. 35-38.
[9] Benjamin and Davies, p. 71; https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2022/03/30/why-the-us-and-nato-have-long-wanted-russia-to-attack-ukraine/; https://www.cato.org/commentary/biden-fails-explain-why-us-should-fight-proxy-war-against-russia
[10] Benjamin and Davies, pp. 84-85.
[11] Katrina vanden Heuvel, interview with Alternative Radio (David Barsamian), April 11, 2022.
[12] John Bellamy Foster, “The U.S. Quest for Nuclear Primacy,” Monthly Review, February 2024, pp. 1-21.
[13] Zevin, pp. 1, 332.
[14] Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (NY: Pantheon, 1988), chapter 2.
[15] How Much Less Newsworthy Are Civilians in Other Conflicts? — FAIR
[16] ‘Words like Slaughter:’ A comparative study of The New York Times reporting in Ukraine and Gaza – Mondoweiss
[17] Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked a defense boom. It’s likely to outlast the war | CNN Business
[18] E.g. Jake Lynch and Anabel McGoldrick, Peace Journalism (Stroud, UK: Hawthorn, 2005).
[19] Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon, 1988).
[20] Zevin, p. 20.
[21] Zevin, p. 282.
[22] Zevin, pp. 366-367
[23] Zevin, p. 349.
[24] Zevin, p. 396.
[25] Zevin, p. 324.
[26] Gilbert Achcar, The New Cold War: The United States, China and Russia from Kosovo to /Ukraine (Haymarket Books, 2023).
[27] Monthly Review, “Notes from the Editors,” December 2022.
[28] Lynch and McGoldrick.
[29] Hiroshima’s Nuclear Lesson: The G7 Must Push for Peace in Ukraine | Democracy Now!
Robert Hackett (Ph.D) writes about media, politics and environment in Powell River, British Columbia.
