Reasoning in the News: The Mass and Social Media Research

Reasoning in the News
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The mass and social media have always been important sources of information for many people around the world. There come times when articles published by these sources raise much concern over their accuracy and credibility. These two aspects are what define the reasoning behind a certain article or editorial. There are numerous instances where the reasoning behind some editorials has been very wanting, due to the inconsistencies and inaccuracy thereof.
One such example, is from the Opinions Free Press, in an article entitled President Obama's policies have harmed Chattanooga enough. The main premise in this article is to discredit President Obama and criticize his economic manifesto for Chattanooga, due to what the author sees as unsustainable and ineffective policies towards development. In the article, the author cites a number of developmental agendas set forth by Obama, and uses quite some poor reasoning to discredit them as useless or ineffective.
For example, the author states that; economists and other intellectuals who understand the basics of mathematics know that taxes, minimum wage and increased government spending, are the worst policies when the country faces employment crisis and job growth. The author still goes ahead and states that research had earlier shown 64% of the Chattanooga residents didn’t want the president to visit the city.
These two points indicate very poor reasoning. The first one depicts a serious error in reasoning, a fallacy known in philosophy as argumentum ad populum, or simply, the argument to please a certain portion of people, in this case, professionals. This is because the statement of economics and intellectuals knowing such a thing isn’t universally accepted. If it had been a universal fact, then even Obama himself wouldn’t have used it as an option. The second point, on the 64% who didn’t want the president to visit, indicates a fallacy known as argumentum ad numerum. The author is trying to argue the point of not wanting the president to visit, by trying to show how many other people are of th...