Should the President Use E-mail?

That’s the question posed by Freakonomics a few days ago, but not for the reasons you might suspect.

Apparently email is a good format for delivering bad news. That seems interesting, apparently the dropping of many social cues allows people to receive information in a less defensive attitude. That may well be, but my mother always said

If you’ve got something nice to say write it down, if it’s not so nice say it to their face.

Of course, she also said

If you haven’t got anything nice to say don’t say anything at all.

And if we’re on the subject of things parents tell their children you should check out today’s xkcd…

Going back to the question of Presidents receiving bad news, I’m not sure my mom’s second piece of advice would go down so well.