Logical reasoning PrepTest 120 · Section 3 · Question 16

Incorrect. The premises are about the percentage of coverage that was negative, so the total number of articles is out of scope.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Errors in Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
Stats:
(1) 89% of reporters voted for the incumbent.
(2) 54% of coverage of the challenger was negative
(3) 30% of coverage of the incumbent was negative
Therefore - The reporters let their bias influence their coverage

Answer Anticipation:
This argument relies on statistics and a comparison to lead to its conclusion that the reporters let their bias influence their reporting, both of which suggest specific flaws we can dig into.

An argument that talks about one thing "affecting" another is usually causal, and statistics usually show some type of correlation. Here, the argument is jumping between statistics showing that bad coverage was correlated more strongly with the challenger to jump to a conclusion that bias caused this coverage. As with any correlation/causation jump, there are always other possibilities! Here, in particular, reversed causality makes just as much sense—maybe the reporters went in neutral, but all of the negative things that the challenger did that required negative stories to be written caused the reporters to vote for the incumbent.

For the comparisons, we end up in a similar position. The argument uses the discrepancy in the negative coverage to suggest that the reporting was biased. But there's another explanation for this difference in coverage—difference in behavior! The argument here assumes that an unbiased reporter would have similar levels of negative coverage for all politicians, but it's possible that the challenger just did more negative things. That difference between the two sets of behavior could explain the discrepancy in coverage as much as bias could.

Both of these flaws are essentially the same, so there's a really good chance that the correct answer is going to be in this area. Let's find an answer saying the argument overlooks the possibility that the challenger did more things worthy of negative coverage.

Answer Explanation:
This answer brings up the alternative explanation for the discrepancy—it wasn't bias but rather differences in behavior that led to the discrepancy in coverage. This answer brings up a possibility that the argument ignores and is thus correct.

Key Takeaway:
Flaw-based questions will frequently have answers that would be correct if something else is also true. However, we can't make assumptions in picking the correct answer, so if you find yourself justifying an answer by saying it would address the question stem "if. . . ," you should likely eliminate that answer.

Incorrect. The argument doesn't make any claims about the quality of news coverage—it limits itself to concluding that bias was involved, not that this bias had a detrimental effect, or that the coverage was bad. As such, this answer is out of scope.

Incorrect. The argument discusses the voting behavior only of the reporters, not the general electorate, so this answer is out of scope. The argument never concludes that this bias affected the outcome of the election, just that the bias affected the news coverage.

Incorrect. This answer can be tempting at first—it appears to offer an alternative cause of the skewed coverage. After all, if reporters are more afraid of losing access to incumbents than challengers, then they're more likely to do things that would keep the incumbent happy. But there are two issues with this answer. First, it's relative—fearing one thing more than another could describe a fear that's only slightly higher and thus couldn't explain a 24% discrepancy in coverage. Second, and more importantly, there's no indication that writing more positively about a candidate would risk access to that candidate—maybe they thrive on such attacks by the media, or they don't care what is written as long as something is being written about them. This answer requires us to assume that the negative coverage risks access, which we have no basis for.