#22 - Everyone should have access to more than one newspaper

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Flaw in the Reasoning. The correct answer choice is (A).

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[lday4]

I kind of see why A is correct, but it also almost seems like A is too obvious. Can you explain why B is incorrect? To me that seems like a big flaw in the argument, but I suppose it is moot if important stories only have one side and that is a possibility with the facts of the stimulus?

But I also thought that if the stimulus says "all stories" that's going to include "important stories" so I'm having trouble seeing the issue in equating the two since the characteristics the stimulus describes are attributed to all stories which subsequently makes them characteristics of important stories.

Thanks!

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi lday,

Sometimes the most obvious answer really is the right one!! With B, even though two papers could present the same side, the argument isn't saying necessarily that two papers would definitely cover all sides of every story; it is only saying that one paper definitely won't. A is right because it highlights the difference between covering for every story vs. any one story. It is possible a single newspaper would be able to cover all sides of any one important story, but have some stories (perhaps non-important stories) where they fail to cover all sides. Does that help?

[mokkyukkyu]

I'm still not sure why B is right...
Doesn't all stories include important story and non-important story?
So "ALL" is a bigger idea, and "importance" is just one of some aspect of a story...right? But it still falls under the "all" category.
Why is what the argument saying is a flaw?

[Dave Killoran]

I'm still not sure why B is right...

I think you mean to say (A) here, and I'll proceed on that assumption

Doesn't all stories include important story and non-important story?
So "ALL" is a bigger idea, and "importance" is just one of some aspect of a story...right? But it still falls under the "all" category.
Why is what the argument saying is a flaw?

The key here to me is the difference between important stories and all stories, but not quite in the way I think you've interpreted it. One premise of the argument states that, "all sides of an important story should be covered" and then states that "no newspaper adequately covers all sides of every one of its stories" (which is the all reference). Now, if those two things are true (and we take them as such because they are premises), does that then allow us to infer that, "some important stories would not be adequately covered" if only one paper existed? No, because it is possible for a paper to not cover all sides of every story but to still cover all sides of the important stories. They could do minimal coverage of the small stuff, and then do extensive coverage of the important stories. But the argument fails to take that into account when it concludes that some important stories wouldn't be covered adequately. Do you see that shift there? That's a classic LSAT trick, and thus we have the flaw that, "The argument confuses the inability to cover all sides of every story with the inability to cover all sides of any important story."

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!

[mokkyukkyu]

Thanks, it makes sense now

[jmramon]

Thanks for the explanation, Powerscore! Just to be clear, the first part of the first sentence is the conclusion, right?

[Eric Ockert]

That's correct. The first part of the first sentence is the main conclusion, while the last part of the last sentence is the intermediate conclusion (which is really the flawed conclusion that is drawn in the argument).

[Etsevdos]

If the argument said: "Since all sides of an imp. story should be covered and no newspr covers all important sides. some important stories would not be adequately covered if only 1 newspaper" would that be correct?

[jmramon]

Thank you for the clarification! Have a great night!