Bad News via Email or In Person?

In Inc. Magazine’s (http://www.inc.com) Year in Review there is a side bar on entrepreneurs crafting thoughtful emails.  All of the examples are bad news being communicated, such as company layoffs.  Reading these examples, I was less interested in the artful words and more interested in why these leaders decided to communicate bad news via email.  Is it because their company is geographically diverse?  Or has email become such the default business medium that they presume it is appropriate for every communication.   Seems to me that news prone to spark emotional responses from employees, such as company layoffs, is still best communicated in person.  In person you can read the reaction on people’s faces and express more pathos to moderate the bad news.  Don’t get me wrong, I love email for many reasons, but not for communicating bad news — better to do that in person.