The Economist has always been a staunch defender and exponent of the values of what the philosopher Karl Popper called the “open society”: a certain democratic pluralism, never carried too far of course; civil society; the rule of law; enduring non-state institutions; fulsome, open, public debate, though not about everything, which would obviously just be silly; checks, balances and accountability for state power, and perhaps to some lesser extent corporate power too; and its own special area of interest and expertise: a free, fearless, fair-ish and independent press, entitled to its own robustly expressed opinions and agendas, but with certain inviolable absolute obligations to inform the public honestly – more or less, within reason – and to uphold simple, well-known and well-understood principles of proper, good journalism. The Economist must never hesitate to commend these principles to other, less enlightened publications both at home and abroad.
Indeed, it is quite an admirable prescription.
A few years ago, after a long period of ducking and diving, the editor of The Economist came out and admitted that yes, he had attended the secret annual Bilderberg Group meeting of Western power brokers, on more than one occasion, and that The Economist had not reported on those meetings. Nor, before the shadowy group’s public exposure by someone we must call a real journalist, Jon Ronson, had the magazine even reported the simple fact that the Bilderberg Group does in fact exist, as had long been rumored but never proven. Indeed, the rumors were sometimes dismissed by the responsible, sensible, conformist media, of which The Economist was and is such a leading light; dismissed as paranoid fantasy on the part of mentally unstable, personality-disordered or frankly character-deficient “conspiracy theorists”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0p-e2ng0SI
The editor admitted that he had given undertakings in advance not to go to press. We were to understand that this was the only basis on which he could gain access; access to what I suppose we must now call the “established conspiracy fact” as opposed to “conspiracy theory”. He gave a few paragraphs of sweetly reasonable self-exculpatory special pleading, post-hoc rationalization and bland, self-serving weasel words, amounting to nothing more than an assurance that they were all decent chaps there and we could trust him for that.
He did not resign, nor was he sacked, nor did the board of The Economist offer any repudiation of his breach of journalistic ethics or apology for his betrayal of his readers’ trust.
Here is a question to ponder: might an MP, say a current or former holder of one of the great offices of state – Blair, Mandelson, Kenneth Clarke, Healey, various others, known and unknown – who treats with foreign powers, not only with no mandate from Parliament and no accounting to it, but actually hiding the fact from Parliament – by for instance repeatedly not registering an interest (Clarke and Healey, for instance, and certainly others unknown, are or have been paid executive members of the group) – might such a person, regardless of the content or consequences of any such contact, have prima facie committed treason? What about a leading journalist not intent on publishing a story?
Here is a second thought experiment: add the label “radical left-wing” to the words “MP” and “journalist”, and now try again, this time imagining the differences that might occur in terms both of law enforcement and of press coverage and emphasis.
There is every reason to believe that The Economist still does, and always will, keep secrets for the rich and powerful, secrets of very real public interest and importance. How that fits with its purported mission and values beats me.