Self-study
In the last election, Support 89 percent of reporters voted for the incumbent. ███ ███████ ██ ████ ████████ ███████ ████ █████████ ███████ ███ ████████ ██████ █████████ ██ ████ ██████ ███████ ██ ██████ █████ ████ █████████ ██ ███████ ██ ████████ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ███ █████████ ████████ ████ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ████ ██████████ ███ ██████████
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author concludes that reporters’ personal biases affected news coverage of an election. Why? Because most of them voted for the incumbent, and there was less negative coverage of the incumbent than the challenger.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The basis for the author’s conclusion is that reporters devoted more negative coverage to the challenger than the incumbent. But what if the challenger deserved more negative coverage than the incumbent? If that were the case, the media would be devoting more negative coverage to the challenger, even if reporters were completely unbiased.
16.
The argument is logically most ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ██
a
presumes, without providing ██████████████ ████ ████ ██████████ ████████ █████ ███████ ██ ████████ ███████
The author never presumes this: his argument is about the ratio of positive/negative coverage for each candidate, not the total amount of coverage (e.g. number of newspaper articles) they received. The ratio isn’t affected by the total.
b
ignores the possibility ████ █████ ███ ████ ████████ ████ ██████ ██ █████████ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ████ █████ ███ ██████████ ███ █████████
If this were the case, reporters might devote more negative coverage to the challenger than the incumbent—even if they’re completely unbiased. This undermines the author’s conclusion that the discrepancy in negative coverage is evidence of bias.
c
presumes, without providing ██████████████ ████ ████████ ██████ ██ █████████ █████████ ██ ██████ ███████████ ██ ███ █████████ ████ ████████
The author doesn’t presume this: he’s alleging the existence of bias, not making a value judgment about its effects.
d
ignores the possibility ████ ███ ████████████ ██████ ████████ ██ ███ █████████████ ████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ████████ ██ ██████████
The conclusion is about bias in news coverage itself; the potential effects of news coverage on voting are irrelevant. We’re looking for factors that affect coverage, not factors that coverage affects.
e
ignores the possibility ████ █████████ █████████ ████ ██████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ████ ████ ████ ████ ██████ ██████ ██ ███████████
If this were true, it would, if anything, support the author’s argument: it suggests that reporters would be biased against challengers.