How do I read The Economist?

In search of methods to control this information firehose.

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Table of Contents

I am a subscriber of The Economist and fairly satisfied with the wide coverage. I’ve uninstall all other news applications across all my devices. I like that my coverage is delayed by a few days (at most a week) and never felt that I am missing out on anything. This allows for reporting that is far more researched instead of mindless hyperboles. Opinion pieces are usually well-balanced. The Economist, however, finds itself in a tough spot on hot-button issue like race. Thankfully, the “Letters” section welcomes feedback from many readers with opposing views and keeps the discourse healthy.

My main challenge is that there is much quality content but only little time to consume. I characterize this, more dramatically, as an information firehose. This post is an attempt to deliberately make up a preference order for topics that matter to me the most.

Everything

The Economist categorizes all articles into sections below 1.

Sometimes, there are other special sections.

My Picks

Barring a few interesting pieces in other sections, I’m usually most interested in these.

Reading Strategy

A set of pre-decided favorite sections has not been satisfactory. Not that I want to read everything, I do feel there has to be a better reading strategy to maximize impact.

The search for meta-processes for reading is still on.

Footnotes

  1. I will enumerate in more detail what each section is about at some point. ↩