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Now a Magazine Figures Out Why Its Circulation Sucks: Clueless People Do Not Subscribe

April 24, 2025

Sadly I am a dinobaby and too old and stupid to use smart software to create really wonderful short blog posts.

I read an essay in a business magazine much loved by those former colleagues I enjoyed at the blue-chip consulting firm where once I worked as a jejune dinobaby. The publication called itself a “newspaper,” but it looked like a magazine to me. The tone was a bit more breezy than the documents cranked out by the blue-chip consulting firm. But the general approach was the same: We know so much more than you. We can, therefore, explain the basics of India’s poverty, the new jet engine from Rolls Royce, or the mysteries of the US home loan system.

That “newspaper” is the Economist. Don’t get me wrong. Like the approach of the British debate teams, my colleague and I faced in college, the faces change but the tone and attitude persists. Too bad we won more debate competitions against British teams than we lost, and it sure wasn’t because we were smarmy.

Not surprisingly I read “Too Many Adults Are Absolutely Clueless.” Yep, the same fingerprints appeared on this story. The main idea is that “adults” — you are supposed to insert fat Americans for this token — are stupid. Okay, I am not sure this is news to anyone who has bumped into students in America. I grew up in a bubble. Lucky me. Then for one year I found myself teaching in a US high school in a “poor section” of a Midwestern city.

Guess what?

On day one I figured out that the majority of the students in my charge were not what my life experiences taught me to view as “smart.” When was this? Last month, five years ago? Nope. I did this one year’s work in 1968 when I switched from the PhD program at Duquesne University to the University of Illinois so I could study with one of my mentors. As I recall, the students in the program which I was hired to “manage” and teach was called “The CWS Program” or Cooperative Work Study Program. I won’t go into details, but here is a quick snapshot of what I learned almost a half century ago:

  1. The students, aged 14 to 17, came from homes in which two parents were exceptions
  2. The students were unable to read the provided text books and, as my team learned, the sports pages and funny papers were out of reach.
  3. Many of the students came to school to fool around or to fill time when there weren’t more interesting things to do in the area in which they lived or slept
  4. The students in the CWS program were there because they had brushes with the law and were released to their parent or guardian from a detention center if they agreed to go to school and participate in the CWS program. (Translation: Most were guilty of minor crimes like shoplifting clothes and food. A few were guilty of assault and gang related activities)
  5. The academic level of these students —- buckle up, buttercup — was not significantly different from the performance of the students in the non-CWS population of this particular high school.

Now in the spring of 2025 I learn that the Economist, a publication which has been fighting to keep up its paid circulation to blue-chip consultant types and their ilk, has discovered that American students and young adults lack basic skills.

What? Where have you newspaper ostriches been for the last 50 years? Perhaps the folks at the down-home Economist have not visited Blackpool, England, lately. That’s an example of what’s shaking in the intellectually thriving atmosphere of the sceptered isle.

The write up asks:

Need to change a tyre or file your taxes? In America, “adulting” courses can help

The courses won’t help. The problems in education and “adulting” have anchored their roots deep in society. A couple of classes will not fill in what is missed when:

  1. Families remain intact
  2. Kids and adults have enough to eat and a place to sleep
  3. A supporting, learning-oriented social environment.

Today’s information flows have simply accelerated the erosion of learning “basic things” like threading a needle, putting oil in a vehicle, and understanding that credit card bills have to be paid with actual fiat currency. (Visa UK is keen on hooking a credit card to crypto currency, so good luck with that.)

Now why doesn’t the Economist have a larger and fast growing subscriber base? The number of individuals who can make sense of the articles is a tiny percentage of a large set of potential subscribers. Like learning how to fix a broken dish, semi-esoteric writing is too much work.

If you want to reach people, make a short video and post it on TikTok. If you want to catch my attention, write about something that is not exactly a recycling of the modern equivalent of ancient history.

China has a lot more fun pointing out the problems of the US with its aggressive China Smart, US Dumb content marketing than writing about a class in Austin, Texas.

Net net: Yeah, grow up. Plus I would add, “Write about fixing up Blackpool while considering who is clueless.”

Stephen E Arnold, April 24, 2025

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under News, Social Media, Training 

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