QUESTION TEXT: Journalism’s purpose is to inform people about…
QUESTION TYPE: Complete the Argument
CONCLUSION: Often, sensationalistic gossip is included to sell papers/shows, rather than for journalistic reasons.
REASONING: The purpose of journalism is to help people make informed choices. But people often buy newspapers or watch journalism shows in order to learn about sensationalistic gossip that won’t help them make choices.
ANALYSIS: Increasingly, the LSAT wants you to make (reasonable) common sense deductions.
People who publish newspapers want to make money. Therefore, if people buy newspapers for the gossip, then it sounds like publishers include gossip in order to sell more papers.
The right answer phrases this as “non-journalistic reasons”. That’s just a way of adding one more layer of difficulty to the question, by making things slightly more abstract. (Gossip is non-journalistic because it doesn’t help people make decisions.)
While you need to assume things about newspapers’ motives, you also need to avoid assuming that gossip destroys journalism. Many people would disagree with that, especially newspaper owners.
___________
- CORRECT. See the analysis above. It sounds like gossip is included because it sells, rather than for journalistic reasons.
- Not necessarily true. Gossip doesn’t serve the purpose of journalism, but we have no evidence that it prevents the purpose of journalism. There is a middle ground – it could simply have no impact.
- Nonsense. The argument said that sensationalism isn’t relevant to people’s lives.
- Why? It sounds like sensationalism is entertaining. So it probably is a way of keeping the audience entertained.
- Not true. Sensationalism may have entertainment value. It just doesn’t serve the purpose of journalism. Something can be useful even if it doesn’t serve the purpose of journalism.
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