In today’s culture of fake news and misinformation, it has become more important than ever to verify the accuracy of news and to understand the rhetorical approach behind authorial meaning. Oftentimes, writers for media outlets, public figures, and particularly politicians use rhetoric that is not only based on false claims but displays logical fallacies, whether intentional or unintentional, that can lead the reader to misinterpret the evidence and form erroneous conclusions. At its core, rhetoric is argument aimed at manipulation—of emotions (pathos), logic (logos), and authority (ethos). To be as informed as possible and to recognize rhetorical manipulation, a solid understanding of the different types of fallacies and their usage can come in handy. This paper focuses on three different types of logical fallacies—ad hominem, ad populum, and false analogy—and examples of their usage in the media, specifically looking at the respective fallacies in Rolling Stone’s coverage of a Donald Trump interview in 2015 (ad hominem), Fox News’ coverage of Kevin de Leon, a Democrat State Senator, and his swearing-in ceremony (ad populum), and a New York Times article drawing a parallel between former President Obama’s healthcare struggles and Hurricane Katrina (false analogy).
Per writer Hans Hansen, the ad hominem fallacy takes an argument out of context by attacking some aspect of the arguer’s character instead of the argument itself: “The ad hominem fallacy involves bringing negative aspects of an arguer, or their situation, to bear on the view they are advancing” (par.13). Oftentimes, this fallacy shifts the focus of the rhetoric from critiquing a point-of-view toward critiquing some perceived character flaw of the arguer. One can see this fallacy at work in the Rolling Stone article, “Trump Seriously: On the Trail with the GOP’s Tough Guy.” It should be noted that the author of the article, Paul Solotaroff, does not himself use the fallacy to advance an agenda, but the coverage of President Trump’s use of the fallacy is an extreme example of the ad hominem. In the article, Solotaroff covers Trump at a political rally prior to his presidency and quotes the now-president discussing a potential candidate in Carly Fiorina: “’Look at that face!’ he cries. ‘Would anyone vote for that?’” (qtd. in Solotaroff). Clearly, Fiorina’s physical appearance has nothing to do with her ability to succeed as a politician, but Trump here uses the ad hominem to attack her looks and character instead of her viability as a candidate. This is clearly ad hominem because instead of critiquing Fiorina’s views on education, for example, Trump chooses to attack her appearance, which has no relation to any political agenda. Interestingly, Solotaroff fails to take Trump to task for these sexist and misogynistic remarks, choosing instead to follow up with a rather sheepish “boys will be boys” remark, as shown here: “And there, in a nutshell, is Trump’s blessing and his curse: He can’t seem to quit while he’s ahead” (Solotaroff). Solotaroff might have instead pointed out the essential ad hominem fallacy in Trump’s diatribe, but he misses the opportunity for swift rebuke, and instead the article reads like a condonation of sexist views.
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Another logical fallacy found in the media is ad populum. Per Hansen, ad populum is a fallacy that regards popular opinion as a gold standard for appeal: “The fallacy ad populum [appeals to] popular opinion, or common knowledge” (par. 10). This fallacy erroneously assumes that most of the population are authorities on most subjects. A parallel can be drawn here to the idiom, “Everyone is doing it, so, why don’t you?” One can see ad populum at work in Richard Grenell’s Fox News article, “Top California Democrat: Reliance is the ‘American Way’.” In this opinion piece, Grenell disparages Kevin de Leon, a Democrat State Senator, at his California swearing-in ceremony. Apparently, Grenell has issue with de Leon’s remarks regarding the failure of the American Dream, i.e., the notion that one can achieve success simply through hard work and determination (an ideology that oversimplifies the vision of American class structure and its oft-oppressive institutions). In response to de Leon’s speech, Grenell writes, “Democrats are out to encourage Americans to learn to love a handout instead of hard work … It’s no wonder businesses are leaving California every day.” In this passage, readers can find ad populum at work here since Grenell appeals to the public opinion as a justification for his viewpoint. Grenell seems to say, since “businesses are leaving California every day,” this must mean that de Leon’s statements are wrong. If the majority population of California businesses disapproves of de Leon’s statements, then they must be right. Also, there is a larger public appeal at work here as well, particularly in Grenell’s reference to the American Dream and how “most Americans” must realize that it is a viable ideology. Grenell’s ad populum argument fails because it in a fallacy to claim that most Americans are authorities on the complexities of the American Dream and that their majority opinion of it somehow proves his point.
A final logical fallacy in the media is false analogy, which erroneously seeks to prove a point by relating two completely different situations. False analogy commonly takes arguments out of context in comparing two unrelated conditions. Analogies work well with similes in poetry and literature, but not as much in the media, as shown by Michael Shear’s New York Times article, “Health Law Rollout’s Stumbles Draw Parallels to Bush’s Hurricane Response.” As shown by the title, Shear’s article seeks to draw a direct comparison between former President Obama’s rollout of his healthcare bill and Hurricane Katrina, as shown here:
The disastrous rollout of his health care law not only threatens the rest of his agenda but also raises questions about his competence in the same way that the Bush administration’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina undermined any semblance of Republican efficiency. (qtd. in Shear)
This is a false analogy fallacy because the two entities being compared, i.e., a healthcare rollout and a natural disaster that claimed the lives of nearly two-thousand victims, are so intrinsically unrelated that the analogy makes no logical sense. Not only are the two events unrelated, but one is a piece of legislation, and the other is an environmental crisis outside of human control. The responses of the two different presidents regarding these vastly different events begs the question why Shear would attempt to compare them at all, since it does not strengthen his argument but weakens it through fallacy.
Using three different examples of various types of fallacies—Rolling Stone’s coverage of a Donald Trump interview in 2015 (ad hominem), Fox News’ coverage of Kevin de Leon, a Democrat State Senator, and his swearing-in ceremony (ad populum), and a New York Times article drawing a parallel between former President Obama’s healthcare struggles and Hurricane Katrina (false analogy)—one can see how the media often relies on faulty reasoning, sources, and analogies, etc., to advance a rhetorical viewpoint. As information consumers, it is important for readers to understand the rhetorical goals of the media forms they read and watch and to have a solid grasp of what type of fallacies the media often employs.
- Grenell, Richard. “Top California Democrat: Reliance is the ‘American Way’.” Fox News,
20 Oct. 2014, http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/10/20/top-california-democrat-reliance-is-american-way.html. Accessed 30 May 2017. - Hansen, Hans. “Fallacies.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/fallacies/.
- Shear, Michael. “Health Law Rollout’s Stumbles Draw Parallels to Bush’s Hurricane Response.” The New York Times, 14 Nov. 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/us/politics/parallels-to-bush-in-toxic-political-mix-threatening-obama.html. Accessed 30 May 2017.
- Solotaroff, Paul. “Trump Seriously: On the Trail with the GOP’s Tough Guy.” Rolling Stone, 9 Sept. 2015, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/trump-seriously-20150909?page=13. Accessed 30 May 2017.
