Logical Fallacy in Journalism Essay
The effectivity of news media flexible joints mostly on its effectual representation of the facts. This is non to reason that a intelligence narrative can non be inherently biased by such factors as civilization. perceptual experience and even the intended audience of a specific journalistic mercantile establishment. However. it is to propose that any claim made and uncorroborated will function merely to decrease or discredit the value of a journalistic intent. Such is a point notably apparent in Clarence Page’s 2000 article. originally published in the Sacramento Bee and entitled “Keeping the Faith.
. . To Yourself. ” At the bosom of this article is the appraisal that the separation of church and province which Americans have long valued as a agency to continuing single spiritual freedoms is being eroded today by a revival in some contexts of what the columnist refers to as fanaticism. Page. who has a long a respectable sketch as a nationally syndicated author for the Chicago Tribune and as a frequent invitee on such telecasting intelligence plans as The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and Hardball with Chris Matthews.
( Wikipedia. 1 ) Having established himself with a considerable grade of acknowledgment and credibleness. Page is possessed of the duty to prosecute his capable affair with the uttermost of objectiveness. However. the concise column presented here fails in this attempt. continuing toward its point sing the fading line between church and province by crutching upon a series of rational false beliefs. These false beliefs run the gamut of categorical mistakes in logic. finally cut downing the article to rhetorical look and sentiment.
There is small to urge it as an empirical instance scrutiny or as a cultural survey in American factionalism. though it seems to urge itself as such. Indeed. the anecdote which stimulates the article is obliging plenty. In a challenging incident at a football game in Hattiesburg. Mississippi. Page studies that when little group of pupils in the bleachers began intoning “The Lord’s Prayer. ” it was merely a affair of vocalizations before 4500 persons where jointly engaged in supplication.
Informal and culturally built-in in one respect and founded upon the indoctrination which Supreme Court determinations. Page studies. no longer entitle in public schools. this would propose a singular undertone of spiritual committedness. It is Page’s purpose to discourse with justified concern the deductions of this natural happening to the importance of keeping an ambiance in our public schools which is comfy and non-threatening to persons of all spiritual temperaments and religions.
To the disrepute of this article. Page does non use a great trade of research or referenced support to back any of his claims. which renders a great many of them as outsized or disproportionately stated. While certain facets of his statement seem rational and worthy of our consideration. the haphazard attack taken to the look of information here suggests a less-than-journalistic value system in topographic point. For case. there is instantly a glowering absence of documented beginning support in cases where the nature of claims would look to propose that such is needed.
Particularly. the article’s purpose suffers from Insufficient Data. At the declaration of the article proposed. Page faux pass into a brief and theretofore unsuggested fulmination about the importance of America’s free market and the relationship of this market to spiritual freedom. Though non an obnoxious statement. its wording is dubiously inflated given the absence of any definable support or pretence. Page contends that “America’s verve owes a batch to its free market topographic point of thoughts. including spiritual thoughts.
It is a major ground more people clamor to acquire into this state than blare to acquire out. The best manner for the market place to maintain its verve is for us Americans to seek to understand each other’s belief. non coerce each other into fall ining ours. ” Particular statements such as “major reason” and “the best way” are to the full unqualified and the stated proportion which determines that there is a specific effecter ( i. e. spiritual freedom ) which causes more people to clamour for entryway than issue from America.
In this latter statement. there are two appraisals made with univocal declaration that have no give grounds to back up them and. upon statistic contemplation. could even be held as incorrect. This is a clear journalistic defect. So excessively is the frequence with which Untested Assumption mars the applicability of Page’s statement. Basically. the work is committed to the restatement of the subject that while the writer does non wish to discredit religion or supplication. he does wish to urge that spiritual leaders take a more sensitive and less public attack to encouraging and encompassing it.
There is. in this statement. a gesture which seems about over-compensatory. by which Page efforts to asseverate the high regard in which he keep faith and supplication even as he coins assorted phrases which portray organized faith with superciliousness. This is on clear show in his finding as to the likeliness of concerted restraint on the portion of Christian supplication advocates where he states. “I don’t expect to see much decrease shortly in attempts by assorted believers—most of them rather well-meaning—to push their beliefs on others.
” Among the more blatant of Unseasoned Assumptions here is that which denotes that most Christians are unthreatening. Again. here is a statement which at its nucleus does non needfully arouse a sense of journalistic examination. However. in its exaggeration or in the failure to confirm such as statement with closer review. the article diminishes the veracity of what might otherwise be considered a absolutely acceptable statement. It besides tends to underline the contradiction within the statement. which besides voices explicitly ( ‘I don’t expect. . . ) a professed cognition as to that of which others are intended upon or capable.
This could be conceived as a slightly counter or inflammatory bating of the Christian parties at topic in the treatment. finally bring forthing an premise which betrays ideological biass on the portion of the journalist. The biass become inherently debatable to the intended value or veracity of the statements transporting the column. And even more distressing. in the rare case where the article does reflect on some verifiable history of information or historical instance. it has descended into the false belief of False Analogy.
Namely. it appears that small idea has been placed in the choice of illustrations by which to back up the claims of the article. Particularly. we might anticipate that a utile analogy would compare the author’s desire to see a decrease in public show of supplication to another case in which the populace and governmental will had agreed to keep the separation of Church and State. Alternatively. the writer refers in a slightly self-defeatist mode to illustrations of precisely the antonym.
He notes that “past tribunal determinations have ruled that “in God We Trust. ” which began looking on currency in 1860. has been in usage so long as to hold lost its spiritual significance. Obviously. it has non lost is spiritual significance in some heads. ” In add-on to the usage. one time once more. of an unseasoned premise in the last statement which assumes that it is true and even obvious that there is a spiritual significance to the phrase “in God We Trust. ” the false analogy here really proves a greater cultural propensity toward the mainstreaming of the patterns which Page decries.
Therefore. it is a confusing and awkward pick of analogies. On the amount. the Page article returns to decrease the viability and entreaty of a position which. if founded upon bearable statements instead than categorical false beliefs. would be otherwise agreeable. Works Cited Page. C. ( 2000 ) . Keeping the Faith. . . to Yourself. The Sacramento Bee. Wikipedia. ( 2008 ) . Clarence Page. Wikimedia. Ltd. Inc.
