Marcus: For most ethical dilemmas the journalist is likely to face, traditional journalistic ethics is clear, adequat...

Ross-Rinehart on February 7, 2022

Because we don’t need to establish that journalistic ethics must provide guidance “every case in which a journal must make a professional decision” to make Anita’s conclusion true. After all, Anita’s conclusion is only about the situations in which the journalist is wondering if their information is “important or newsworthy.” So, we only need to establish that journalistic ethics don’t provide guidance to those specific dilemmas. Like many incorrect answer choices on Strengthen with a Necessary Premise questions, (E) is stronger than it needs to be.

By the way, (D) has the exact same problem as (E).

RachP on May 29, 2022

I thought this was a strengthen with sufficient premise question?

Mazen on November 23, 2022

I am not a tutor, but I think that was a typo: it is a strengthen with sufficient premise question.

The contrapositive to E gets us to "inadequate," which is what makes this answer appealing because A concludes that the guidance is "inadequate."

E, however, is ultimately a trap answer because, per the contrapositive, the sufficient becomes: it (i.e. the system of journalistic ethics) does not have to provide guidance in every case in which a journalist must make a professional decision.

In other words, the sufficient to the contrapositive to E is: the system of journalistic ethics may not provide guidance to some cases in which a journalist must make a professional decision. And this sufficient condition, as derived from the contrapositive to E does not trigger A's necessary conclusion to "inadequacy," because it does not tell us whether such instances raise ethical dilemmas.

In retrospect, there may be cases that are not "newsworthy," or are outside the "typical case" that the system of journalistic ethics needs not to provide cases because they do not present the journalist with an ethical dilemma; it therefore does not trigger A's conclusion.

(As such, I do not think that E is too strong; I think it is out of scope. Also "too strong answers" are okay to select with questions that ask to strengthen with sufficient premises. The same cannot be said about questions that ask us to strengthen with necessary premises; too strong is the wrong answer. This question is a strengthen with sufficient premise.)

E becomes more clearly incorrect by focusing on A's support and conclusion. Her conclusion is that the guidance is inadequate.

Her support is: it (the traditional guideline of journalistic ethics) does not cover the typical case which is when a journalist whether the acquired information is important or newsworthy.

But the debate between M and A is about whether the traditional journalistic ethics guidelines are adequate in the case of an *ethical dilemma.* As such we need to link A's support to "ethical dilemmas (we have a gap between A's typical case as she defines it and the ethical dilemma).

If A's support can raise an ethical dilemma, as answer A says, the link is established to trigger the conclusion of inadequate guideline.

Another layer of difficulty about this question is the word "quandary" which in context implies that the issue is left unresolved. But it could be left unresolved without raising ethical dilemmas. If it is left unresolved but does not raise an ethical dilemma, then M is correct and A's conclusion does not properly follow. E plays on this aspect of the debate: "quandary" is a dilemma, but it is not necessarily an ethical one. If it a non-ethical dilemma, then the traditional system of journalistic ethics, M supports, does not have to cover it!

With answer A, on the other hand, we, in the typical case, have a quandary that raises an ethical dilemma; accordingly, it is clear that M's system is inadequate for it does not address it.

Mazen