ARGUMENT135

TOPIC: ARGUMENT135 - The following is a memorandum from the business manager of WLSS television station.
"Over the past year, our late-night news program has devoted increasingly more time to covering national news and less time to covering weather and local news. During the same time period, most of the complaints we received from viewers were concerned with the station's coverage of weather and local news. In addition, several local businesses that used to run advertisements during our late-night news program have just cancelled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to our news programs and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should expand the coverage of weather and local news on all our news programs."WORDS: 368 TIME: 00:30:00 DATE: 2008/8/5 19:08:27

In this argument, the arguer draws a conclusion that the WLSS television station should expand the coverage of weather and local news on all their news programs, merely based on the unfounded assumption and dubious evidences. At first glance, the argument seems somewhat convincing and reliable, but further meditation reveals that it omits some essential concerns that should be addressed to support the argument. In my point of view, the argument suffers from 3 logical flaws.

To begin with, the argument's indication that they should expand the coverage on all their programs based on the fact that most of the complaints they received were concerned with the station's less time to converging of weather and local news. It is possible that the total number of complaints now is much less than the past, although there are more complaints concerning about the expanded converge.

Moreover, although the total complaints increased, the argument's indication is based on the assumption that the coverage of weather and local news will result in the fact that several local businesses that used to run advertisements have just cancelled their advertising contracts with us. Perhaps there are other factors, such as the economic depression of the advertisements, or the broken relationship between WLSS and these local businesses, might just as likely be the cause of the cancelling. Without ruling out these possibilities, the argument cannot draw such a conclusion.

Finally, although the cancelling and complaints were caused by the station's devoting more time to covering national news, it is unnecessary for WLSS to expand the coverage of weather and local news on all their news programs. Because the reason of the complaints and less contracting with local businesses are both concerned with the late-night news. So, there is no evidence that their day news suffers these problems.

In a word, the arguer fails to substantiate its claim that the WLSS television station should expand the coverage of weather and local news on all their news programs. In addition, the arguer would have to provider more information in order to make the argument more convincing. Therefore, if the argument had considered the given factors discussed above, it would have been more thorough and logically acceptance.