The following memorandum from the business manager of a television station. "Over the past year, our late-night news program has devoted increased time to national news and less time to weather and local news. During this time period, most of the complain

A recommendation by the business manager of a television station suggest to restore amount of air time dedicated to weather and local news to its previous level. The argument's rationale is to attract more viewers to the late-night news program and to avoid losing advertising revenues. This argument bases its case on premises that most of the complaints within the past year has been complaints regarding coverage of weather and local news as well as local businesses cancelling their advertising contracts since the increased in national news in the program. This argument does not provide a strong case as it is rifled with holes and assumptions that need to be addressed.

First, the argument was vague in stating what the views complained about as it only states "viewers were concerned with our station's coverage of weather and local news". The argument made an analogous assumption that the concern of weather and local news means that the viewers did not like that there was less time devoted to weather and local news. The viewers could be concerned that the type of reports on local and weather news was relevant to them or that they feel the quality of reporting was low, not necessarily that they wanted more local and weather news. Therefore, without this assumption being addressed, the argument fails to show support for the restored air time of weather and local news. A stronger case would be presented if the argument showed what exactly the viewers were complaining about.

Closely linked to the previous point, the argument assumes that since the majority of complaints were about local and weather news that it was a substantial number of complaints. Perhaps, there were only a three complaints in total and out of these, two were complaints on local and weather news. Two complaints would not be a substantial enough number to warrant that most viewer want more local and weather news coverage as they do not represent a majority population view. Thus, it would not support the view that more time should be devoted to local and weather news based on just a few complaints. It would be beneficial for the business manager to show the number of complaints and also do a poll with a large sample size on what type of news they prefer.

Lastly, the argument makes a causation assumption that the local business cancellation of advertising contracts was because of the decreased coverage of the weather and local news. The argument fails to take into consideration other reasons why the advertising contracts were cancelled. A likely possibility is that viewership went down because of the decreased in quality of the news reporting, as mentioned earlier. With increasing social media, there are many other mediums in which people can obtain news information and would rely less on television news programs. Therefore, the restoration in local and weather coverage would not help in promoting more television news viewership.

Clearly, the bulk of the evidence show that there are many loopholes in the argument as it made assumptions that were not fully addressed. More surveys that ask a large group of people for their direct opinions on the programs they would prefer is required.