#13 - Criticism that the press panders to public sentiment

[Dave Killoran]

Complete Question Explanation

Must Be True-SN. The correct answer choice is (D)

The stimulus contains several conditional relationships that can be diagrammed as follows:

PM = profit making
Sub = subsidy
OC = outside control
HJ = honest journalism

• Third and fourth sentences: PM → Sub → OC
  
  Last sentence: HJ → Sub

The third and fourth sentences indicate that if the press doesn't make a profit, then it must be subsidized, and if the press is subsidized then outside control occurs.

The last sentence indicates that subsidies and honest journalism do not occur together, and thus honest journalism will not be subsidized.


Answer choice (A): This answer is a Mistaken Negation of the second half of the first diagram above and is thus incorrect.

Answer choice (B): This answer is a Mistaken Reversal of the second diagram above and is therefore incorrect.

Answer choice (C): This answer states that if a press is not subsidized then it cannot be a profit-making institution. According to the information in the first diagram above, if a press is not profit-making, then is must be subsidized. Via the contrapositive it follows that if a press is not subsidized it must be a profit-making institution. Since the contrapositive contradicts the information in answer choice, answer choice (C) is incorrect.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer. This answer links the statements in both diagram above. According to the second diagram above, if a press produces honest journalism it cannot be subsidized. This can be diagrammed as:

• HJ → Sub

According to the contrapositive of the first half of the first diagram above, if a press is not subsidized, it must be a profit-making institution. This can be diagrammed as follows:

• Sub→ PM

By combining the two statements we reach the following diagram:

• HJ → Sub → PM

It follows that a press that produces honest journalism must be a profit-making institution and thus answer choice (D) is correct.

Answer choice (E): This answer is a Mistaken Reversal of answer choice (D) and is therefore incorrect.

[netherlands]

Hi there PS,

I actually had several questions about the explanation of this game.

First was, Why did you guys choose to diagram Control as a necessary condition for Subsidizing.

The way that I read it I translated it as " If the press is not profit making then it requires both Subsidy and Control:

Not Profit Making Subsidy & Control Non Honest Journalism


2) I also found it interesting / a tad bit confusing that you translated Not Honest Journalism and Propoganda as synonymous when you were explaining that B was a mistaken negating of Sub Non Honest Journalism. I can totally how it means if its not subsidized it will produce honest journalism ( which is what non-propoganda is) and how that's an MN. But I think I looked at it and said "well, they didn't really tell me anything about what the press chooses or will produce if its not under the constraints of subsidy and control, it only explicitly tells me what the press will do under control, so I really can't make a "must be true" claim".

Last!- is there anything special that I should have noticed about the fact that C began with "not to be" or were they just trying to freak us out by making it look different?

Thank you!

[Steve Stein]

Hi Netherlands,

Why did you guys choose to diagram Control as a necessary condition for Subsidizing.
The way that I read it I translated it as " If the press is not profit making then it requires both Subsidy and Control"

Yes, those go together; that is exactly how conditional reasoning works--if you know one thing, you are then able to glean another. The stimulus provides that "the only alternative is subsidy, and with it, outside control." In other words, if you choose the subsidy alternative, then you are also choosing outside control.

Please let me know whether this makes sense--it's a pretty important point in conditional reasoning--and then we can move on to your next question.

Thanks!

~Steve

[netherlands]

Hm, I do understand - I guess I just need to pay even more attention to the verbiage. So saying, "and with it" is kind of like saying " and then...".

Had they said " The only alternative is both subsidy and outside control" or simply "The only alternative is subsidy and outside control" - then that would have been the case where I should have diagrammed it the way I did, correct?

It feel like "and with it" is one of those phrases that could be interpreted either way and is a little fuzzy. Looking at this now I still feel like there's nothing concrete about that statement that indicates that what followed " Outside Control" should be an additional necessary condition vs a sufficient condition paired with "subsidy".

Am I missing something - or is this just one of those phrases that I need to kind of memorize?

[Steve Stein]

Hey Netherlands,

Thanks for your response. I wouldn't say you're missing something here; if anything, I'd say the problem is sort of the opposite--either diagram would work in this case, so you shouldn't be too concerned (the explanation could have grouped them together as well and been no less legitimate--the author simply chose to spell out that link).

I hope that's helpful! I know that you're interested in ensuring a proper foundation, and it seems like you're doing quite well, so please let me know whether this is clear--thanks!

~Steve

[netherlands]

That does help! Just wanted to know that there's nothing horribly wrong/off track that I was doing!

[BrettKobes]

**Question content has been removed due to LSAC licensing restrictions**

correct answer is (D) To produce honest journalism, it must be a profit making institution.

I don't understand how they arrived with that answer?

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi BrettKobes,

Thanks for your question. The stimulus contains several conditional relationships, which need to be diagrammed. The third and fourth sentences indicate that if the press doesn't make profit, then it must be subsidized, which requires outside control:

(1) NOT profit making Subsidy Outside control

The last sentence suggests that subsidy and honest journalism are incompatible with each other:

(2) Subsidy NOT honest Journalism

The two diagrams can be linked together. According to the contrapositive of the second diagram, if the press produces honest journalism, it cannot be subsidized:

honest journalism NOT subsidy

Using the contrapositive of first diagram, we can further conclude that without subsidy, the press needs to be a profit-making institution:

NOT subsidy profit making

From this chain relationship, we can conclude that honest journalism requires the press to be a profit making institution:

honest journalism NOT subsidy profit making

This prephrase agrees with answer choice (D), which is the correct answer choice.

Hope this helps! Let me know.

[BrettKobes]

Hey Nikki,
Thanks for your response. It is awesome how well you guys respond to questions!

back to the question - I get everything you provided; however, the part that confused me was the third and fourth sentence. I was trying to diagram it:

Press profit making NOT ----> Support NOT

Subsidy -----> outside control

subsidy ----> propaganda

subsidize -----> NOT honest journalism

is subsidy and support supposed the same thing?


.....so I saw no linkage

[Nikki Siclunov]

Glad I could help. Yes, the wording is tricky: subsidy and support aren't exactly the same thing; however, subsidy is a type of financial support. Your diagram suggests that if the press weren't profit-making, no one would support it. This isn't true: the author poses a rhetorical question ("who would support it?), and then proceeds to answer it by claiming that "the only alternative is subsidy." Thus, we can conclude that "subsidy" is a necessary condition for a non-profit institution to survive (recall that the word "only" is a necessary condition indicator).

Also, just because it is easy to get subsidy for propaganda does not mean that subsidy requires propaganda (which is implied by the third line of your diagram). The conditional relationship between subsidies and propaganda is left unclear.

Does that clear things up?