D.C. Photo Fakeout: This TV is too fat to be flat

In our ongoing efforts to enlighten the world about the misrepresentations of hotel marketing, we’ve examined several cases of artful cropping — the strategic selection of only the most flattering little corner of a photo with the aim of hiding unsightly construction cranes, unfortunately located department stores, or the staging of hilariously impossible surfing sequences. We recently came across an instance that proves this is truly a game of inches. Note the TV in the corner of this room at the Residence Inn Washington D.C. Vermont Avenue. Pretty flat, right? Now check out our photo, taken from another angle, which clearly shows that TV to be a bulky old set as unwieldy as the hotel’s name. Admittedly, the language on the hotel’s website promises only a flat-screen television (meaning the screen itself is flat), not a flat-panel one, where the whole device is thin enough to hang on a wall. (A previous version of this post confused the two terms — our bad.) But we have a sneaking suspicion that the Residence Inn Washington D.C. Vermont Avenue wanted to confuse the matter, or it wouldn’t have so carefully cropped out the TV’s bulky behind in its marketing photo. Judge for yourself.