As the current information explosion forces the print media, television, and the Internet to compete for public atten...

Emil-Kunkin on October 3, 2022

This is a question we could use the "therefore" test for. That is, if we are in doubt about which sentence proves another sentence, we could say "this therefore that" and "that therefore this' and the one that makes sense tells us what the conclusion is. Lets try this here, with the following statements: journalistic standards are lowered, and we are increasingly bombarded with inaccurate and trivial information

journalistic standards are lowered. Therefore, we are increasingly bombarded with inaccurate and trivial information. This makes sense, because of worse journalism, the information we get is worse.

We are increasingly bombarded with inaccurate and trivial information, therefore, journalistic standards are lowered. This does not make much sense. Maybe if we had additional info about what makes good or bad journalism, but in the context of this argument, it is clear that the final sentence does not support the next to last clause, and it is in fact the other way around.