While we’re on the subject of The Economist…
The magazine’s Increasing Cultural Cred and its Desire for Creative Publicity have, it seems, united as one. In the form, specifically, of Off the Page, a total rip-off of the New Yorker festival weekend of events sponsored by the magazine. Events, um, vaguely reminiscent of the New Yorker festival.
The inaugural Off the Page extravaganza will be held over the weekend of October 31 in New York City, and will be, apparently, “artful”–with lectures on the “art of the obituary,” the “art of political satire,” and the “art of debate.” The “art of bestowing on a competitor the sincerest form of flattery” lecture, apparently, didn’t make the cut.
All kidding aside, though, Off the Page sounds, to us, like a great idea all around–and a nice way to test the theory that, as The Economist claims, “Great Minds Like a Think.”
Megan Garber is an assistant editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. She was formerly a CJR staff writer.