This Bloomberg BusinessWeek slideshow on the best places to raise your kids for its is unintentionally (I think) funny.
How many terrible Photoshop jobs can you put in one click-show? How about fifty?
My personal faves include this family enjoying the snow in South Carolina, of all places, in a giant chair. Arizona is also good with the mom and daughter hovering dozens of feet above the road in Tucson in a warm embrace. Connecticut makes me think BusinessWeek really must be joking:
People in Missouri love their wicker furniture, but I don’t think they use them like lawn chairs downtown. This Montana family appears to be skiing on a warm summer day at City Hall or something. I know North Dakota’s not very populous, but this father and son should really get out of traffic. Same for these Wyomingites:
Journalistically—cough—there are other problems here. Not all of the pictures are from the towns they say they’re from. BW says Lawton is the best place in my home state of Oklahoma to raise kids. Well, um, probably not, but anyway, this picture is of Bricktown in Oklahoma City, folks—eighty-five miles away. Also, did the kids just fall into the canal?
This Gaithersburg, Maryland, family is hovering over White House airspace for some reason.
Let’s face it: There’s little to no journalistic utility in doing such a study, which is naturally going to be arbitrary, in the first place.
I know these slideshows are attempts to bring many more hits than a single article with less effort, but this is kind of embarrassing—an example of the Good Enough Economy that just isn’t good enough.
Even if it did give me a half a chuckle.
Ryan Chittum is a former Wall Street Journal reporter, and deputy editor of The Audit, CJR’s business section. If you see notable business journalism, give him a heads-up at rc2538@columbia.edu. Follow him on Twitter at @ryanchittum.