The Economist launches new weekly column

The Economist last week launched a new column, The Telegram, with a focus on geopolitics. Each week the publisher says its mission will be to explain an increasingly complex and interconnected world. The full-page column will run in the International section of the newspaper.

The author will be David Rennie, The Economist’s first Geopolitics editor and Telegram columnist. Rennie will draw on his years writing weekly political columns for the newspaper from Brussels, London, Washington and Beijing, successively. The column will be reported from leaders’ summits and street markets, and explore how global problems are changing local politics and everyday life, added The Economist.

According to the publisher, the first column argues that today’s interconnected world makes the cold war look simple.

Rennie said: “For more than a century, foreign correspondents, analysts and diplomats sent telegrams to their headquarters, offering timely and concise reporting and analysis from the ground. This new column is named in honour of that tradition. The Telegram will speak to policy-makers and to those affected by their decisions, as it tries to explain today’s most urgent and contentious geopolitical debates.”

Zanny Minton Beddoes, the editor-in-chief of The Economist, said: “Our readers and subscribers look to The Economist to make sense of a fast-changing world. We are proud of our news and commentary about important countries, regions and businesses. Now we are adding an authoritative, deeply-reported column with a global focus.”