John Stewart's "Let's Leave it There"

During this fake newscast, Stewart criticizes many aspects of the television network, CNN. First of all, he points out that CNN is not doing a good job of fact-checking. For example, instead of checking the reliability of statistics such as "between 100 and 200 billion dollars," and "a 500 billion dollar cut," CNN is investigating the reliability of Saturday Night Live Skits. Obviously, most people know that SNL exaggerates things and does not stick to the truth, making it unnecessary to actually research the skit to see if it's true. What CNN should be focusing on, rather, are the statistics that are just thrown out into the news broadcasts without any proof that they are true. Another feature that Stewart criticized was the use of logical fallacies. For instance, one of the reporters uses a slippery slope when he talks about how the health care reform will lead to socialized medicine and ultimately to a country in a terrible situation. This clearly is not true and should not be used in a newscast. One more practice he criticizes is when the reporters say something like, "OK, we're out of time, let's leave it there." Just as the debate starts to get heated and controversial, it seems as though CNN makes it end right away by saying something along those lines. Stewart hates this practice, since the issue is never brought back up again and a conclusion is never reached. Lastly, Stewart criticizes the way CNN thinks of the term "balance." During debates, CNN simply has one person from each political party bicker at each other, interrupt each other, and dismiss each other's views. There is no sense of order in the arguments, and information is often stilted to fit each person's argument.

In academic discourse, these concerns would be addressed by following a few rules. One way to make the problems better would be to actually do research on the facts, presenting them while also reporting where the information came from. This way, the viewer knows that the statistics are not made up and are true. As for the use of fallacies, these would be avoided with academic discourse by thoroughly thinking about the argument at hand and not coming to an irrational conclusion just to try to make a point. In order to solve the problem of the "balanced" debates and the issue of "let's leave it there," academic discourse would instead fully address the problem and not stop discussing it until both sides of the argument are completely addressed. In addition, academic discourse would have a different goal in mind during the debate. Rather than focusing on "winning" the debate and persuading people to lean toward one side, people engaging in academic discourse would have a goal of informing the public about everything there is to know about the topic so they can have a deep understanding of the issue.