hashtagdang wrote:
Thank you so much!
“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.”
The argument claims that the Mercury should lower its price to compete against the Bugle, however the argument reveals a leap of faith, poor reasoning and ill-fated examples of price competition. The conclusion relies on several assumptions which there is no evidence. Hence the argument is weak with many flaws.
First, the argument states that there is a decline of Mercury’s readership due to a lower priced newspaper. There is no evidence of the nature or editorial of the Bugle or the Mercury to make this comparison. There are many more factors involved in newspaper circulation starting from the content, quality, distribution and timeline. The author simply fixated on the price over the course of a certain time to make this assumption. This argument is flawed and could be improved if there we had known the current pricing of Mercury’s newspaper.
Second, the author suggests to reduce the price of Mercury in order to compete with Bugle. However, the author did not consider again, the content and branding of Mercury’s into factor. If Mercury were to reduce its costs for the sake of pricing, its readership will deemed as lower quality. Many reputable newspapers such as NYTimes and the Economist managed to justify a higher cost than other newspapers because of its expertises. If Mercury simply reduced its pricing, it will not guarantee a higher attraction of readership. Therefore, the author cannot assume that the Mercury would be sustainable.
Finally, the author concluded that increasing businesses would bring more advertising space onto paper due to wider circulation. The argument is invalid due to many assumptions for advertising. Companies with certain profile will only choose the Mercury based on its content and not necessarily for its popularity. Many niche markets would be able to market properly even though its readership is low, but at least will guarantee more effective marketing than a mass published media.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above-mentioned claims and is therefore, unconvincing. It would be clearly stronger if the argument mentioned the same content of both Mercury and the Bugle. In order to access the full clear situation, the argument needs to have similar editorials in order to make the pricing comparison. Otherwise, the argument is unsubstantiated and is open for debate.
Seems decent.
I would just say that add real life examples that will give life to your essay. Otherwise it seems fine.