Blue Truth Red Truth

In Time Magazine Alex Altman and Alex Rogers seek to illuminate the lies told during this years presidential campaign. It starts with a story about two lies told by both Romney and Obama. It continues to address the back and forth of accusations and untruths told by both parties. The authors reference one of the first campaigns between Jefferson and Adams and they relay that mud slinging is nothing to to society. They go on to summarize what lies have been told but their point is that there are no consequences as a result of the lying. The american public basically says ok they lied and then moves on. The lay out of the article includes two pictures, one of Romney and one of Obama, which take up two pages and then two pages of the article. After there is a section with quotes stating the lies which have been told, the reality, and then the verdict by the authors. Example: Romney stated "'We have to open up markets for our goods... [Obama] has opened none' Reality- Obama signed previously negotiated trade deals with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea Verdict- False" There are a grand total of 20 of these quotes. Then one other page of writing follows these quotes.

Altman and Rogers appear objective in this article. If they state that Obama lied they say Romney lied too. If they had appeared to favor one side they would lose a lot of readers. With this strategy they do not insert themselves into this article. They rely on Logos to prove to the reader that this article is legitimate. They provide evidence from various studies done by graduate students and professors from such Universities as Dartmouth and Princeton and they also cite historical evidence. They do not quote "a source" or "a friend of Romney" they instead use only reliable sources that can be fact checked. They use such sources because their article is all about fact checking and lying and if they had lied in their article it would destroy the entire piece's credibility. They do insert their opinion through the verdict piece of the article but that is again based on gathered facts.