Monday, April 24, 2017

Presidential Desks? Not Quite.


This article from Town & Country on an expert's view of the neat versus messy desk habits of U.S. presidents not only comes across as biased, but also as ignorant.

For example, anyone who spent ten minutes studying Nixon's management style knows that the photo used was clearly unusual. Study Carter's management style and you'll conclude that it was far from focused.

I also like the wholly subjective call that some examples are staged while others are not. [The most staged item of all was probably the Nixon photo.]

Articles such as these illustrate a common problem with modern journalism: blending bias with ignorance in order to produce a quick hit piece.

That may work provided the readers know nothing about the subject.

4 comments:

Dan in Philly said...

An almost cartoonishly liberal "analysis" of the presidential desks.

Democrats get words like "Sentimental, personal, systematic, thinker, doer, undivided, deep, animated, thoughtful, and focused."

Republicans get words like "Chaos, posed, pomp, not much life, not engaged, overwhelmed, chaotic (again), impulsive and non-systematic."

I am too young to remember Nixon, but to me the portrayal of G W Bush is especially repulsive and lazily biased.

Michael Wade said...

Daniel,

You're right. It was almost cartoonish and it certainly had a slant.

Michael

Kurt Harden said...

We have entered the era of caveat lector. I long for a few genuinely observant paragraphs.

Michael Wade said...

Kurt,

In the old days that article would not have gotten past an editor.

Michael