Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five
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16 Jul 2020, 23:18
The following appeared in an announcement issued by the publisher of The
Mercury, a weekly newspaper.
“Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago,
The Mercury’s circulation has declined by 10,000 readers. The best way to get
more people to read The Mercury is to reduce its price below that of The Bugle, at
least until circulation increases to former levels. The increased circulation of The
Mercury will attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper.”
Discuss how well reasoned... etc.
MY ESSAY
In his argument, the author reasons that after the inception of a lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, five years ago, The Mercury’s circulation has declined by 10,000 readers. He also suggests that the best way to increase the circulation of The Mercury is the reduction of its price below that of the Bugle. He argues that, by doing so, the circulation levels of The Mercury would increase to at least the former levels. The author also concludes that the increased circulation of the newspaper would attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper. The argument of the author can be questionable in several of its premises and can be criticized based on the optimistic causal relationships assumed by the author.
To begin with, the author assumes that the introduction of a new newspaper, The Bugle, is responsible for the decline in the circulation of The Mercury. This assumption is critically flawed as there might be several other reasons for the decline in the circulation of The Mercury. For example, it might be possible that the newspaper started reporting false news over the past five years and this event coincided with the introduction of ‘The Bugle’, leading the author to fallaciously assume a causal relationship between the introduction of The Bugle and the decline in circulation of The Mercury.
Moreover, the author suggests that the best way to increase the circulation of The Mercury is to reduce its price to below that of The Bugle, at least till the circulation increases to former levels. This is a questionable premise of the author’s argument in that this premise assumes that the price is the only factor that determines the popularity of a newspaper. It might be possible that The Mercury has lost its brilliant editors and the quality of the news reported has decreased dramatically. Therefore, even if the price of the newspaper is lowered to below that of The Bugle, there is only a bleak chance that the circulation of the newspaper will increase to its former level or a level greater.
In addition, the author claims that the increased circulation of The Mercury will attract more businesses to but advertising in the paper. This is also a critically questionable statement as we are given no information about the reach of the newspaper to the business circle. For example, it might be possible that The Mercury is targeted at a different set of audiences in that the newspaper reports only political related news. Thus, the assumption that more businesses will buy advertising space in the newspaper comes under serious criticism because of the underlying reason.
To conclude, the argument of the author is questionable in several of its fallacious assumptions. To strengthen his argument, the author needs to provide the basis for each of his assumptions and prove the causal relationship drawn by him with the help of suitable evidences.