And it’s usually trying to push an agenda, to boot.
And the newspaper's quite refreshingly and frankly open about that fact:
And now we beg to submit the following detail of the plans which we have thoroughly organised to carry into effect these objects of our ardent desires, in the following PROSPECTUS of a weekly paper, to be published every Saturday, and to be called THE ECONOMIST, which will contain— First.—ORIGINAL LEADING ARTICLES, in which free-trade principles will be most rigidly applied to all the important questions of the day—political events—and parliamentary discussions; and particularly to all such as relate immediately to revenue, commerce, and agriculture; or otherwise affect the material interests of the country....
<https://www.economist.com/unknown/1843/08/05/prospectus>
(I'm not claiming support or opposition of the viewpoint. Only that the Economist has a view and explicitly promotes it, quite openly.)
Because quite plainly, they do.
And I would expect that to be exercised through editorial control and directives.
If you think the Economist does NOT have an editorial bias, or a different editorial bias, what is your basis for claiming so, and in the latter case, what is that bias?
You seem to be putting "disagree with dredmorbius" ahead of "express myself clearly". Try the latter.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09500170211015...
Ideally I'd say that "they" are the editors, but we don't know what level of influence the owners have, so "they" could be the Cadbury family.