Self-study
Journalism's purpose is to inform people about matters relevant to the choices they must make. ████ ████████ ██████ █████ ███ ██████████ ██ █████ ██████████ ████ ████████ █████████ ███████ ████ ███████ ████████████████ ██████ █████ ██████ ████ ████ ████ █████ ████ ███ █████ ████████ ██ ██ ██████ █████████ ██ █████ ██████ ██████████ █████ ███ ████████████████ ██████ █████████ ██ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ████ ████████ ████████
Summary
The purpose of journalism is to inform people about things that are relevant to their choices. Newspapers and TV news programs often have sensationalistic gossip, which isn’t relevant to people.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
The blank should be filled with a statement about the sensationalistic gossip in newspapers and TV news programs. Since we know that this gossip isn’t relevant to people, and we know that the purpose of journalism is to provide relevant information, we can conclude that sensationalistic gossip doesn’t serve journalism’s purpose.
15.
Which one of the following ████ █████████ █████████ ███ █████████
a
is at least █████████ ████████ ███ ███████████████ ███████
Strongly supported. The gossip is about people who aren’t relevant to news readers/watchers. So, it doesn’t serve journalism’s purpose. This is evidence that the gossip is included in newspapers and TV news programs for some other reason besides serving journalism’s purpose.
b
prevents those news █████ ████ █████████ █████ ███████
Unsupported. Most other news stories might serve journalism’s purpose. There’s no evidence that the inclusion of some gossip stories is a significant part of news programs or otherwise represents a significant part of what news media does.
c
is more relevant ██ ████████ █████ ███ ████ ██ ████ ██ ██
Unsupported. The stimulus never compares the present to the past. We have no basis to reach a conclusion about whether gossip is more relevant now compared to the past.
d
should not be ███████ ██ ██ █ ███ ██ ███████ ██ ████████ ███████████
Unsupported. The gossip might be included to keep the audience entertained. There’s nothing in the stimulus suggesting the gossip doesn’t entertain audiences.
e
is of no █████ ██ ██████ ███ ███ ██████████ ██ ██████████
Unsupported. We don’t know what people who are interested in journalism find valuable. Maybe gossip stories are valuable to read in journalism classes to give students a better understanding of the media industry and the competitive pressures that lead to gossip stories.