[derektank]

>Someone who wants to tell you something true doesn't lead their communication with emotional distraction.

This seems needlessly cynical. Someone can have multiple objectives in writing, to tell you facts and also to capture your attention or to convey an emotion and motivate you to action. Very little writing is done with a single purpose in mind. We don’t expect academics drafting research papers to eschew concerns about the impact the writing will have on their career for example.

Starting a story with an anecdote that humanizes the information is simply acknowledging the reality that people want more than just facts. If the latter was all they wanted, most of us would only read encyclopedias and textbooks.

[autoexec]

In this case it really was just pointless distracting filler. The article would have been better without it. I reach for different books when I want drama or entertainment than when I want data and research. This article promises one thing and then clumsily shoves something else in randomly throughout. It really is obnoxious.