“I’m pretty sure Phil Gyford has requested something similar…”
Me too, but I don’t know if I requested it anywhere that’s in writing. Anyway, yes, it would be useful.
I think at the moment, though this kind of thing does exist, it’s simply that it’s not in a single place.
Aside from the previous mentions of the New Yorker and the Economist, I’d suggest the few current affairs articles in the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books. Both do a good job of covering a particular topic in reasonable depth, are well written, and usually manage to explain things clearly without insulting the audience. Because they’re fortnightly they don’t try to be too up-to-the-minute and are more reflective. They also tend to lean more toward the left than the Economist does. On the other hand, you wouldn’t want them to be your only source of news, as their coverage is far from even (usually biased towards the economy, national politics and the Middle East).
Maybe it’s simply that you need a blog/whatever that picks out the really good post-event analysis articles, rather than something that starts writing them from scratch?
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