Couldn’t have planned it better!
Today in class we talked about how to construct arguments. You know: claim, reason, evidence. That’s the core. But a thoughtful argument should acknowledge limitations on the claim and offer a response. That’s the theory.
In practice, it doesn’t always work that way. Certainly not in politics, where many politicians are loathe to admit any limitations on their claims, lest they give ammunition to their critics.
And, lo and behold, what do I read in today’s NY Daily News, but this article on life at MSNBC after Keith Olbermann’s departure. It seems that acknowledging limitations on claims doesn’t make for such good TV either:
For those who haven’t been keeping score at home, the [talk TV] game in its purest form goes like this:
Hosts start with a set of facts. They pick the ones that support their views. They deliver them with a tone of gathering drama, urgency, humor, irony and sarcasm that ridicules anyone who disagrees.
It’s a simple formula that’s deceptively hard to execute well. For one thing, you lose points if you seem to acknowledge too openly that there could be gray areas, or that the other side could have a point.
Just to be clear, the article isn’t singling out MSNBC for playing this game exclusively. Hardly. It’s just using the vacancy at MSNBC to speculate what kind of a commentator will take Olbermann’s place. In fact, as this sarcastic quote makes clear, there are times at which pundits do recognize gray areas:
…hard-core lefty listeners will have to work with a couple of hosts, like [Lawrence] O’Donnell and Chris Matthews, who occasionally say those dreaded words “but on the other hand.”
For anyone interested in Fox News’ own special brand of talk TV denial, take a look at this hilarious clip from The Daily Show on the use of the word “Nazi.”
Always nice to see that what we’re learning in class is being discussed in the real world.