A logical fallacy is a mistake in reasoning. They are basically like tricks that are used often by the politicians or the media to fool people. An article written on the The Stranger website talks about how Fox News uses logical fallacy to talk about the kayak protesters in Seattle.
The http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/16/seattle-kayak-shell-protest_n_7298518.html article explains that the Seattle protesters are protesting against Royal Dutch Shell Company's plans to resume oil exploration in the Arctic and keep the two of its drilling holes in the city port. According to the articles author, Anzel Hers, the type of fallacy that is used by the Fox News is the "tu quoque" fallacy. It occurs when someone is focusing on the acts of the person making the argument, instead of the actual argument. During the Fox news airtime, 5 of the talkers were talking about the Seattle protesters but they were not actual talking about what they are trying protest, they are basically slamming them for protesting in the kayaks. They are talking trash about Seattle in general saying that they "basically have nothing....they have water, they have rain". The author points out that water is used to bring life to the planet so what they said was misguided and it made them look unprofessional on live television. The people on the news also talked about the shows that were made in Seattle. After all the time they had on air, they never even mentioned anything about the protest or why they were protesting and if they are making any progress on it.
As I was looking through the comments about the article, I realized that a lot of people were basically saying that Fox News is known for doing this. Some actually talked about the issue itself and what they thought about it. Some argued and some were debating about it in a normal manner. Some comments were about the fallacy itself such as some agreeing with it and some disagreeing. There were not much of the same type of comments on the article, they all ranged in different ways.
I thought this was a good example of logical fallacy in news, especially since it was in the air as well, not just online.
Sasha,
ReplyDeleteGood choice of words. I also like your example that you used for the fallacy that you chose for this blog. I hope you keep coming up with some good ideas like these.
Natalie Hunter
I find The Stranger a very interesting newspaper; it's the local equivalent of City Paper here in the DC area, and of course it's famous for Dan Savage's "Savage Love" column, which would indicate that the paper itself probably leans left (very left).
ReplyDeleteGood example of tu quoque here. I'm glad that the media is highlighting the logical fallacies made in talking-heads segment arguments against protesters. This happens not just with protestors (whom often don't get "heard" because they all don't have a mic) but with politicians, who can at least try to correct the record.
Now that you see how The Stranger tackled it, this would be interesting in expansion with other talking-head news segments and tu quoque.