Q18 - Blogger: Traditionally, newspapers have taken objectiv

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Necessary Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Differing business strategies is the best way to understand why today's journalistic standards are more inclined towards openly partisan reporting (instead of objectivity).
Evidence: Newer media need to differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace, while older media didn't have serious rivals. They developed the standard of objectivity because their objective was to avoid offending readers.

Answer Anticipation:
There are a lot of potential pressure points on this one.

We could start with MISSING LINKS: we have to assume that "creating a stir with openly partisan reporting" is something that "helps new media differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace". We're assuming that "new media do NOT have to care as much about avoiding offending potential readers".

In terms of potential OBJECTIONS, we're assuming "there isn't something ELSE that better explains the contrast in journalistic standards".

Correct Answer:
D

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) The author doesn't need to assume this and may be even thinking the opposite, since he thinks the old school papers had a standard of objectivity.

(B) Nothing about this hinges on what people "prefer". We only need to know that partisan reporting helps differentiate new media in a crowded marketplace.

(C) This is just baiting us into using outside knowledge. The author doesn't comment on the popularity of new media vs. traditional newspapers.

(D) Yes, this is an assumption connecting the last two ideas. (We probably wouldn’t have thought of them as the main focus, but the "so" in the last sentence reveals that it is a conclusion being drawn on the basis of the first clause in that sentence. This just spells out the connective tissue of the last sentence.

(E) Way too extreme. "There can be NO basis for objectivity"?

Takeaway/Pattern: They really gave us a big argument to chew on. That set up a sneaky correct answer, testing a Bridge idea from a premise to an intermediate conclusion.

#officialexplanation

[EmmaD803]

I'm a little confused about why A) is wrong. If we apply the NOT test, this would say "Journalists at traditional newspapers are NOT as partisan as journalists who work for newer media outlets." This would imply that the reason traditional newspapers are not as partisan is simply because the journalist who work there aren't as partisan, thereby destroying the blogger's argument, rendering A) a necessary assumption.

I can see why D) makes sense as the correct answer, but can someone explain why A) doesn't work either? Thanks!

[LolaC289]

I still have question on this one. While all other 4 choices can be eliminated, (D) doesn't seem to be necessary. Even if traditionally newspapers mainly tries to avoid offending readers and newspapers now want to differentiate themselves (and not follow the tradition), it doesn't have to be that they now POSITIVELY SEEKING TO offend readers, does it? It might as well be that they move their focus to other areas and not that much about offensive or not. Even if (D) is negated and newspapers think objective reporting is as offensive as (or even more offensive than) openly partisan reporting, so what? These newspapers may just not care about offence any more so they use whatever they like.

[jonathan13]

I echoe EmmaD803's question. I chose A) because it seemed to block the alternative explanation as to why the journalistic standards are different in traditional newspapers and in newer media. Instead of differing business strategies as being the reason behind the contrast in journalistic standards,as the conclusion claims, the standards may differ because the journalists' stances are different. So I thought the equality of the journalists' stances was a necessary assumption in this argument.

I was stuck between A and D. I understand why D) is correct, because it connects the two clauses of the last sentence. I need to pay closer attention to the relationship intermediate conclusion and its supporting premise. I focused my attention only on the main conclusion and was very enticed by the possible implications of answer choice A).

I guess answer choice A) is too strong of a statement to be a necessary assumption. Even when I negate it, it doesn't destroy the argument. Sure, even if the journalists at traditional newspapers are less partisan than journalists at newer media, does it mean differing business strategies is NOT the best way to understand the contrast in the journalistic standards? For A) to weaken the argument, I need to make an unwarranted additional assumption that journalists' stances have a significant impact on the journalistic standards. I need to assume that the journalists' impact is large enough to yield the contrast in the journalistic standards. Indeed, this is the assumption I made, and I had thought this was a fair assumption. I needed to separate the journalists from the journalistic standards. They're not the same thing!

On a separate note, I need to remind myself that when "equality between two things" is invoked in necessary assumption answer choices, it is more likely to be incorrect because it's quite a dramatic standard to uphold.

[ohthatpatrick]

Great questions.

Yes, your takeaway at the end is the most important:
equality is extreme

If you replace words like "same" or "just as ___ as" with "IDENTICAL", you'll hear how rigid these ideas are.

And when you negate "equal", you simply get "unequal", which by itself will neither strengthen nor weaken, because we don't know which side is larger than the other side.

The negation of (A) is that
"Traditional journalists are NOT just as partisan as newer journalists."

That could mean that traditional journalists were MORE partisan (which seems to strengthen) or that they're LESS partisan (which seems to weaken).

I would mainly encourage people to make that their takeaway about (A).

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On a more subtle level, I think the direction people were considering with (A) is kinda tricky because "having more / less partisan journalists" on the staff at your newspaper can be a subset of "the business strategy to be objective / partisan".

In other words, if we found out that the journalists working at newer media outlets are more partisan than those who worked for traditional ones, it's not clear that we're offering an ALTERNATIVE explanation for why papers have gone from objective to partisan.

After all, if a newspaper's business strategy is to be more partisan, it would be likely to hire more partisan writers to write for it.

Finally, since the conclusion is "this contrast in standards is BEST understood in terms of differing strategies", it's not sounding like the author is saying "Differing strategies is the ONLY thing causing this shift." It could just mean "it's the most important thing". So if modern journalists are more partisan, that could be a contributing factor the author would agree with and it wouldn't undermine the idea that we can BEST understand the shift in terms of business strategies.

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As for the previous post about (D), the poster was asking:

Even if traditionally newspapers mainly tries to avoid offending readers and newspapers now want to differentiate themselves (and not follow the tradition), it doesn't have to be that they now POSITIVELY SEEKING TO offend readers, does it?

You're right, the author isn't assuming that newer papers are positively seeking to offend readers. It sounds like the author believes that newer papers are at peace with potentially offending readers, as a byproduct of the new business strategy to be more openly partisan.

But I'm not sure what any of this has to do with (D).

(D) is just connecting the dots between the last two claims (found in the final sentence).

When the primary objective was to avoid offending potential readers, these traditional newspapers developed the standard of objectivity.

From that, you can derive the idea of (D), that these traditional newspapers must have thought that "objectivity" was a tactic that would help them to avoid offending potential readers.

The mention of 'partisan' in (D) is not trying to say anything about modern partisan reporting. It's basically just a placeholder for non-objective. You're either objective or partisan. If older papers who wanted to avoid offending chose to be objective, then they must have deemed objective reporting as less likely to offend than partisan reporting.

Hope this helps.