Analysis Of The Good The Bad And The Daily Show

Professor and philosopher, Jason Zinser, in “The Good, the Bad and The Daily Show” addresses the topic of “fake” news, and tries to decide if shows such as The Daily Show are good resources for people to use. Are these shows a suitable replacement for "real" news? In the article he states that “fake” news shows have their “virtues and vices”. At the end of the article, Zinser believes that as a whole the shows helps the viewers learn about current events. Zinser uses ethical appeal, logical appeal, and emotional appeal to help get his point across to the readers.

The use of Ethical appeal in "The Good, the Bad, and The Daily Show" was almost primarily used on the first couple of pages. The author of the article, Zinser, received his doctorate

For example, while talking about the “Virtues” of “fake” news, Zinser states, “If viewers simply parrot what they happen to hear on The Daily Show, How can they be expected to make informed decisions about public policy? As the saying goes, 'a little knowledge can be dangerous '" (Graff 371). This statement is completely true; if the public is not correctly informed or only has a fraction of the information, then they cannot make informed decisions. He goes on to say that more than the “fake” news The Daily Show airs during an episode is needed to make accurately informed decisions. In this instance, Zinser’s statement is purely logical. In order to make an informed and accurate decision, the person has to have complete and accurate details not just snippets that they hear at random. Another statement Zinser makes is “ “fake” news typically doesn’t gather the news, but rather comments on stories first reported by traditional news” (Graff 373). Most people would agree with this statement: The Daily Show does not send staff to follow congressmen, the President, or other political officials. The information they use in their show has already been made known by a traditional media outlet. The show simply just takes that information and makes it fun for their

If the reader actually thinks about this statement and does not just skim over it, then they would notice how sad this statement actually is. The people only hear what their government wants them to hear. The United States is no different, but the media is not controlled to the same extent it is in North Korea. Zinser uses this statement to make the reader think about we can learn from media and how making it into a comedy show the audience does not take seriously. Another place Zinser uses emotional appeal is when he wrote, “Journalist, like Tom Fenton have blamed the media for failing to anticipate the pre-9/11 threat posed by terrorism” (Graff 364). By saying that the media is at fault for not anticipating the pre-9/11 threat he, Tom Fenton, believes that the media should be taken very seriously and are “in charge” of picking up clues from the people and places they are reporting on. Since Zinser uses this he is using Tom Fenton’s emotions on the subject to get the reader’s attention.

This article used ethical appeal, logical appeal, and emotional appeal to grab the audience’s attention. As a whole, logical appeal was used predominantly, and emotional appeal used . Using the emotional appeal more than logical appeal in this type of article would have