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Corporate Anonymity

Inigo Thomas

The Economist's blog on American politics is called 'Democracy in America', its Asian blog 'Banyan' and its European blog 'Charlemagne' – names with such earnest symbolic authority that you might think for a second that the Economist had launched a fleet of new aircraft carriers. All Economist blogs are unsigned, which is in keeping with a publication that prides itself on corporate anonymity, but many entries are written in the first person. For example, four recent posts include the following sentences:

Yesterday my colleague posted on the partisanship of Fox News, suggesting we shouldn't take the network seriously.

For the first time so far in my career, I briefly fell for a hoax.

I've long believed that Mongolia, among wild countries, is the Last Best Place, to steal the slogan for Montana.

I have real problems with the idea that because Europe is in relative decline, we have no right to promote our values.

Whoever he or she is, whatever their colleague may have posted and whether they fell (so unfortunately) for a hoax; regardless of what they make of Mongolia or of European 'values' – why is it such a struggle to say who they are? What do 'our values' and your 'real problems' mean if we don't know who you are?


Comments


  • 27 October 2009 at 4:43pm
    DanielGreenwood says:
    It would seem that the publication has grown so powerful that it has acquired sentience.

  • 28 October 2009 at 5:46am
    Gauvin says:
    Is the author suggesting that Fox expresses European values or am I just hearing voices?

  • 29 October 2009 at 10:46am
    hnswst says:
    It's pretty well known that Charlemagne is David Rennie. He was introduced as such on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4