media - Youngsters and brands in The Economist

What is wrong with The Economist in the way they cover China the past few months? Every now and then their headlines force me to put away other interesting stuff, I start reading and end up being rather disappointed. A few weeks ago there was this story on Shanghai where the - always anonymous - author wondered why nobody took the Transrapid to go to Pudong international airport. Everybody in Shanghai knows the line ends (or begins depending on your perspective) in the middle of nowhere, is too expensive and has a bad service, but our investigator of the Economist did not discover those little details.
Today again a very promising article on Young Chinese and brands. A very important topic, since western brands have not been able to make the big inroads they hoped to make into the Chinese markets, since most Chinese - including the young ones - think that price is more important than branding. Things differ between the large cities - Beijing is more brand-oriented than Shanghai - but pricing is the dominating much of the sales in China.
"They like brands" states the article in the Economist, unfortunately that statement is not supported by even the beginning of any proof. Jeff Smith of the PR-firm Knowlton utters some 'believes', but that is his job. Nowhere any solid support for his believes. Rather disappointing again.
Found some other 'believers' later on in the article, but it clearly reflects the opinion of the writer, although it is at odds with reality.