THE MEDIA: The Economist

Over the last century I saw a vast change in communications. I remember the excitement when on our first crystal set, we gently poked the the cat's whisker on to the crystal and finally fond the right spot: a voice came through, crystal clear! When I came to Berkeley in 1937, it took seven days to cross the Atlantic and a four to cross the United States.

The Economist was little known in those days. Now, world-famous and regarded as authoritative, it is printed in seven plants around the world. This growth, notably in the United States, was due largely to editor Geoffrey Crowther, who like Alistair Cooke and me, came to the United States as a Commonwealth Fund Fellow (later called Harkness Fellow). This fellowship program was later emasculated. Whether the Commonwealth Fund had me in mind when it took this destructive action I do not know.

The Christmas issue of The Economist has a retrospective article which pays tribute to Geoffrey Crowther. The story goes that he quit his job there to run a hotel. I am sending a copy of this posting to the newspaper (as it calls itself) to find out if the story is true, and if so, why did he do it? Perhaps he thought it would be less work.

Ronald Hilton - 1/02/01