Yet no other British media business, with the possible exception of the Financial Times, has managed to pull off such a trick.But what do you offer a readership which The Economist claims has a total annual worldwide personal income of £70bn and how do you keep a magazine edited in the heart of London truly global?In addition to having 28 journalists in 21 overseas offices, Emmott and his other journalists - 70 in total - travel a lot and try to avoid being too greatly influenced by the local media.The only daily newspapers The Economist editor reads, for example, are the FT and the International Herald Tribune and he doesn't read any of the British Sunday newspapers. "Our market research people claim increasing amounts of time reading the paper. Why should they lie even more than in the past?"Emmott is reasonably well known in the US but there are two countries where The Economist editor is really high profile: Japan and Italy. On Japan he wrote a book, The Sun Also Sets, predicting, correctly, the waning of Japanese dominance."The Japanese couldn't work out whether I was on their side or against them," he says.In Italy, Emmott is a controversial figure because The Economist essentially accused the Italian president Silvio Berlusconi of being a crook who had given bribes. The liberties they take for granted have evolved over a thousand years or so. The idea that any one government should seriously undermine them seems implausible.
It isn't."The 48-year-old Emmott almost didn't make it on to The Economist staff after indifferent initial interviews. He heard nothing and was a year into a doctorate on the French Communist Party when The Economist got in touch again. Eventually he was offered the number two job in the Brussels office, before working in London and then volunteering for a vacancy in Japan.In his spare time the ultimate global editor likes walking in the English countryside and playing cricket. As he prepares for a few more years as editor of The Economist is there any chance that Emmott will end the anonymity of the magazine's writers?There is not. It's a tradition and now a point of difference but above all, he believes, it helps the magazine to retain a collective voice. "The identity of The Economist is a very strong thing and it benefits from co-operation between journalists. The articles are not written by a collective but there is a certain collective approach and methodology," insists Emmott, the advocate of individual liberty.The Economist methodology includes analytical rigour and a way of writing a story that includes laying out the facts and then coming to a conclusion based on those facts.Yet Emmott is not one of those who is quick to condemn publications that are less rigorous with their facts, and he has little truck with those who argue that British political institutions are somehow being undermined by arrogant, irresponsible journalists."I do share a concern about the reliability and standards of professionalism in the media I think they are inadequate.
The need for them to be high has increased because the readership is more educated and expectations have gone up," explains Emmott.At the same time, the political importance of the media has increased because of the ability for an idea to swirl around the world in no time at all and consumer's ability to compare and contrast has also increased."That's the real change. Expectations have gone up and the media hasn't gone up with them," Emmott adds. As the next British general election comes into view, what will The Economist decide, with or without the help of Alastair Campbell? Emmott is not committing himself because the debate with his staff has not taken place yet, but some of the outlines of that debate are already apparent.On the one hand The Economist is critical of the Tories for their failure to come up with a credible tax plan, for what it sees as their wrong-headed approach to university tuition fees, not to mention the credibility of Michael Howard as a potential Prime Minister. Balanced against that is the worrying issue of how far Labour would remain a centre-right party under Gordon Brown and illiberal polices on everything from law and order to immigration."I'll smile inscrutably," says Bill Emmott, the former Japanese correspondent of The Economist, using the word that his colleagues tend to use about him.The chances are that, sometime in April, The Economist will tell its 1,009,759 readers that it has decided on purely pragmatic grounds that Tony Blair should get another term - although hardly anyone else will notice, or even care very much.. FLY ME T0 THE MOON FLY ME T0 THE MOON Overall Fanzine of the Year and winner of Sports category Cover price: £1The "official unofficial voice" of Middlesbrough FC is edited by Rob Nichols.