The media now devote more coverage to crime than they did ten years ago. Yet this is not because the crime rate has ...
YuquiMarch 17, 2024
How is the first sentence not the conclusion?
I am curious as to how and why the first sentence " The media now devote more coverage to crime than they did ten years ago. " was not the conclusion. I felt that everything in the passage supported it to be the conclusion and I did the why test and it sounded right. So assuming that it was the conclusion , my thought process led me to believe that the role of -the proposition that the public is now more interested in reading and hearing about crime - was support / premise. I've read the explanation and it didn't make any sense and I read some of the answers in this board and I was still confused.
Reply
Create a free account to read and
take part in forum discussions.
I think there's a critical difference between explaining and supporting. The passage isn't trying to prove the first sentence. In fact the evidence in the passage makes no sense as evidence to prove a fact like the first sentence. We would need actual stats comparing coverage now to coverage in the past. Here we only have a reason why this is the case.
Rather the argument sets out two possible reasons for this phenomenon of greater coverage and chooses one over the other. The argument is trying to prove that the one it picks is correct. The first sentence is just a background fact that we use to set up the arena in which our argument takes place.
You are right that in a different argument the fact that "people want to read about crime therefore the media covers crime more" would make sense. However that would be an explanation. That is, the fact that the people want to read about crime explains why coverage has increased, it does not prove that coverage has increased.
