LSAT 10 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q10

LR Question 10 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Broadcaster: Our radio station has a responsibility to serve …

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: It was the station’s responsibility to run the exposé.

REASONING: The public showed overwhelming interest, so the story was in the public interest.

ANALYSIS: “Public interest” is being used in two ways here.

• The public’s attention or curiosity (popularity)
• To be in the public’s best interest (beneficial to society)

The broadcaster is saying that because people want to know about celebrities’ private lives, it’s good for society to expose that information. But that’s conflating two different ways to use the term “public interest”.

___________

1. There’s no argument for or against privacy. They’re just justifying their exposé.
2. This might be true, but it’s not the flaw they’re committing. The flawed logic is in how they justify the intrusion, not in what they’re ignoring.
3. The argument doesn’t depend on defining “excessive”. The ambiguity lies elsewhere (public interest).
4. The stimulus doesn’t mention the law.
5. CORRECT. They treat what the public is curious about as what is beneficial to the public, and use that to justify airing intrusive content.