Wednesday, March 7, 2012

UT student studies local gov't impact

A few weeks ago, Ryan Sowell, a University of Tennessee student got in touch with me about a recent report he published in an undergraduate journal at UT. I finally got around to reading it, and if you like Knox County politics, then I encourage you to check it out. So, click right smack here for a refresher for some of the goodness of the past two decades. Heh.

2 comments:

Brian Paone said...

Simply awful.

Not the past 20 years (which were also awful) but the writeup itself. I'm about 3/4s through at present and don't believe I've found a single page that doesn't have an editorial slant to it.

That's half of the problem with 20th-century-style politics - biased junk being passed off as non-biased fact. The other half is the pandering crap people like Frank Niceley try to pull.

I don't know what Mr. Sowell thought he was trying to accomplish with his little write-up, but I hope he's not too young to understand the consequences bias can have on local civics.

(Probably is, though.)

Brian Paone said...

Finished it. Reads largely as if it were written by Laurens Tullock. Not impressed with the body of work as a non-biased summary of the last 20 years. Very "impressed" with the body of work as a political hit job, though.

Mr. Sowell, editorial slant within a political publication is a time-honored dirty tactic of 20th-century politics - a tactic that should not be used in the 21st century. You might THINK you're helping advance a cause or message, but in reality you're just hindering the process.

Think about it. And watch out for people that keep patting your back and telling you you're great. If they're not your parents, they probably want something from you.

I'd say a few people got that with this write-up. But I didn't.