Q19 - As often now as in the past

[mshinners]

What does the Question Stem tell us?
This is an Explain a Result question of the EXCEPT variety.

Break down the Stimulus:
Journalists use direct or indirect quotation to report unsupported or false claims by newsmakers. This occurs as often now as in the past. What exactly does this mean? Perhaps an example would be a quote in a newspaper from a politician who denies taking a bribe, when there's evidence that he did. According to the stimulus, journalists are becoming less likely to openly challenge the accuracy of these unsupported or false claims. That seems strange, but we aren't given a reason for it.

Any prephrase?
There must have been some change that has affected the way that journalists report these claims. Maybe they are afraid of being sued, or maybe reporters are more biased now than in the past. Since this is an EXCEPT question, we're going to eliminate four answers that could help explain the unexpected result, and look for the one answer choice that does not help to explain it.

Answer choice analysis:
A) This explains the unexpected result. If readers are willing to accept the unsupported or false claims, and many will cancel their subscriptions if journalists dispute those claims, that could cause the change described in the stimulus. Eliminate.

B) This would explain the unexpected result. Journalists would be less likely to challenge these claims if they now lack the knowledge to do so. Eliminate.

C) This is similar to an explanation we anticipated. We hypothesized that journalists might have become more biased, but there would be a similar result if some people began speaking only to the journalists who were favorably biased (or at least sympathetic) toward their views. Eliminate.

D) Correct. If anything, this would make the outcome in the stimulus less likely to occur. We would expect journalists to be just as likely, or even more likely, to dispute suspect claims if doing so might attract attention.

E) This also explains the unexpected result. If journalists are often criticized for challenging the veracity of claims, they might be less likely to do so. We might be suspicious of this answer choice because it doesn't state that this is happening more often now than in the past, but it doesn't necessarily need to. The question stem tell us that answer choices only need to "help" explain the result. They don't need to completely fill the gap the way the answer to a Sufficient Assumption question does. Eliminate.

Takeaway/Pattern: For EXCEPT questions, understand how the correct answer will affect the stimulus, and how incorrect answers will affect it. Also, answers in Explain a Result questions only need to partially explain the result; they don't need to serve as a complete explanation.

#officialexplanation

[zainrizvi]

I was a bit confused by answer choice (D) so here is my explanations for the chocies

(A) Cancelling subscription = bad for newspaper = journalist become less likely to criticize

(B) Journalists aren't knowledgeable enough in the field to criticize = less likely to criticize

(C) If reports are sympathetic to cause = less likely to criticize

(D) Debate over controversial issues draws attention of public. The attention of the public is inherently neither a positive or a negative thing. One could assume that they would avoid attention of public, so it would make it less likely to criticize. BUT, it seems more likely that they would WANT attention of public so they would be MORE likely to criticize. These answer choices are tempting because with a simple assumption they can become true - but you really have to see them exactly as they are there.

(E) Accused of failing professional obligations = journalists become more restrictive in criticism = less likely to criticize

[noah]

Good write-up. The only thing I would change is to add an intro to what the trend we need to explain and to tweak the explanation of (D) - I've edited it below

We need to explain why journalists are becoming less likely to challenge unsupported or false claims made by newsmakers (while journalists continue to include in their articles quotes by those newsmakers). Since this is an EXCEPT question, we expect four answers that do explain the trend, and one that doesn't.

(A) Cancelling subscription = bad for newspaper = journalist become less likely to criticize

(B) Journalists aren't knowledgeable enough in the field to criticize = less likely to criticize

(C) If reports are sympathetic to cause = less likely to criticize

(D) Debate over controversial issues draws attention of public doesn't help explain the trend. First of all, is what the journalists are or are not doing vis-a-vis controversial topics? Maybe the topic is the gardening club schedule (sorry gardeners). Also, we're not sure if attention of the public is positive or negative, as it can be seen as attracting readers or attracting negative publicity.

(E) Accused of failing professional obligations = journalists become more restrictive in criticism = less likely to criticize

[asmaa737]

I also noticed that all of the answer choices- with the exception of D- show a relatively recent trend from how a phenomena changed from one thing to another.

However, answer choice D is the only only that discusses a basic principle, a principle that was there even when journalists used to challenge the veracity of claims. So this gives us no insight on why the journalists' behavior has changed. If anything, it suggests that the behavior should stay the same.

[amiraly]

The Reason I initially chose (C) is because it says "Persons"
--> While the LSAT is a timed test and you have to go through questions extremely quickly and being that this IS an EXCEPT question I thought to myself "Persons" and sympathy seem irrelevant while trying to explain the trend of journalists becoming less likely, however, in retrospect if given 5 minutes to analyze the choices it seems a lot more obvious

[mswang7]

It has not changed that journalists use quotes to report unsupported claims
It has changed that they are now less likely to challenge those claims
Prephase: There have been higher incidents of retaliation for challenging claims

A. They don't want to speak out because they don't want to lose $. makes sense
B. Yes - topics are increasing but expertise is not following
C. Controversial? Term shift? People are decreasing the amount of reporters they speak with and in tern this would cause less challenge of those claims.
D. If debate means more attention they should want to debate more, unless it's bad attention.
E. Yes journalists would want to do what is perceived as good at their job

Struggling between C&D. If It weren't for the suspicious "controversial" in C I would have picked D