Profile or opinion piece? You decide.
After reading a detailed profile on Donald Rumsfeld from Vanity Fair (2003) I can't tell you one thing I've learnt about him - which seems odd as the piece was meant to be a profile of the Defense Secretary. And no, it's not because I'm not interested or wish I was reading Grazia, it's because the writing was hard to digest, the language difficult to read and the main bulk of material boring.
Not odd though when the whole piece contains less than five quotes, one of which is taken from another article from the big man himself. Despite describing the setting of the meeting between subject and writer (Sir John Keegan) there seems to me to be no evidence of an interview taking place. Throughout the feature Keegan throws an immense amount of information at the reader, but only includes a very small amount of Rumsfeld's direct opinion and personality.
We are given a very faint glimmer into his life, instead we are bored with big words, complicated sentences and seemingly dull facts. To me, the most important part of the feature is towards the end when Keegan brings forward views on terroists, an impending war in Iraq and 9/11. The last page of the feature is the most interesting, the page that is placed right at the back of the magazine that you have to find, if you haven't already fallen asleep.
This feature would have kept me much more interested if Rumsfeld's voice had actually appeared as the result of a detailed interview, rather than acting as a pillar for Keegan to display his own knowledge on the subject.
I thought a profile was meant to give an insight into a person of interest. The only think this feature achieves is an insight into the complicated views of a writer on an equally complicated subject, with neither valuable information nor entertaining writing. A lethal combination.
Not odd though when the whole piece contains less than five quotes, one of which is taken from another article from the big man himself. Despite describing the setting of the meeting between subject and writer (Sir John Keegan) there seems to me to be no evidence of an interview taking place. Throughout the feature Keegan throws an immense amount of information at the reader, but only includes a very small amount of Rumsfeld's direct opinion and personality.
We are given a very faint glimmer into his life, instead we are bored with big words, complicated sentences and seemingly dull facts. To me, the most important part of the feature is towards the end when Keegan brings forward views on terroists, an impending war in Iraq and 9/11. The last page of the feature is the most interesting, the page that is placed right at the back of the magazine that you have to find, if you haven't already fallen asleep.
This feature would have kept me much more interested if Rumsfeld's voice had actually appeared as the result of a detailed interview, rather than acting as a pillar for Keegan to display his own knowledge on the subject.
I thought a profile was meant to give an insight into a person of interest. The only think this feature achieves is an insight into the complicated views of a writer on an equally complicated subject, with neither valuable information nor entertaining writing. A lethal combination.
posted by Hayz @ 11:49 AM
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