#18 - Blogger: Traditionally, newspapers have taken

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[srcline697@gmail.com]

Hello,
So I wanted to check my reasoning on this necessary assumption question. I'm still a little shaky.
Conclusion: todays newer media are more inclined to try to create a stir with openly partisan reporting.

So we're looking for an a.c. that is an assumption that makes this argument true! that would be D. unegated D would explain why newer media uses these tactics...b/c they are possibly trying to redefine the original objectivity held by newspapers. Negated this would read as : newspapers have regarded objective reporting as MORE likely to offend people than openly partisan reporting. This would destroy the argument that its the newer media that distorts objective of journalism. I guess D rules out another cause?

Is this correct?
Thankyou
Sarah

[Eric Ockert]

Hi Sarah!

Careful with your prephrase. For an assumption question, the answer doesn't "make" the argument true (that's a Justify the Conclusion standard). You are looking for a statement (not even necessarily the statement, as most arguments have multiple assumptions being made) that is required by the argument.

Here the author says that the most important objective for traditional newspapers was to avoid offending potential readers and for this reason they adopted the standard of objectivity. But why? That only makes sense if we assume that objectivity is less offensive than partisan reporting. This is what answer (D) gives us.

When doing the Assumption Negation Technique, the negation of answer (D) would actually be "Newspapers have not regarded objective reporting as less likely to offend..." Your negation is more of a polar opposite. Both versions would weaken the argument here, but you want to be careful that you are taking the logical opposite of the answer choice, not the polar opposite. There will be times where the polar opposite weakens, but the logical opposite doesn't (which would indicate an incorrect answer).

Hope that helps!

[younghoon27]

May have an explanation on why it is D over C? is C out of scope and to much of a broad answer choice?

[Adam Tyson]

That's one way to look at answer C, younghoon27 - the answer relies on information that is not provided in the stimulus. We don't know anything about what is happening to traditional newspapers. We only know that newer media do things differently, and the author thinks it has to do with their business model. The author doesn't need to make any assumptions about the relative popularity of traditional newspapers or of newer media.

[ashpine17]

Why is B problematic? I thought what people's perception was of objective versus partisan reporting was important. If people were indifferent or preferred partisan reporting, wouldn't that weaken the whole argument about the type of reporting being a business decision?

[ashpine17]

How could it have been the case that it was a business decision to choose objective reporting over partisan if people don't care or may even prefer partisan reporting? I guess I assumed business decisions have to be good ones, but is that unreasonable? Because I assume business refers to how readable the articles are to readers. Someone help please.

[Robert Carroll]

ashpine,

Newspapers' current business strategy is to be partisan. It's at least intuitively plausible that they employ that strategy because they think it will attract readers - so why would we need to assume that people prefer objectivity, like answer choice (B) says? Newspapers have adopted different strategies at different times. If only one of those strategies is actually likely to increase readership, then the other strategy is bad and newspapers should probably not do it. We'd then need to explain why they're doing something so contrary to their interests. An answer choice that merely poses us another, potentially more difficult, puzzle is not going to be an assumption necessary for the argument.

If answer choice (B) is true, why have newspapers changed to an inferior strategy?

Robert Carroll