Monday, November 24, 2014

Logical Fallacies in The O'Reilly Factor

One show on television that many people have either grown to be avid supporters or simply aggravated with it is The O'Reilly Factor.  Bill O'Reilly has gained a rather infamous reputation for his strong conservative views on his show of almost two decades.  In addition to these views, O'Reilly quite frequently uses the hasty generalizations to attempt to prove his assertions.  Most notably, this could be seen when O'Reilly had a segment commentating on the former Republican congressman, Ron Paul.  When commenting on Paul's thoughts about drug laws, O'Reilly states that the act of dealing narcotics is a, "violent crime..."  Although I understand what is meant by this statement, the maker of the video below compares the previous statement with dealing cars, stating that cars kill people all of the time.
The publisher of the channel also includes fear mongering as another tactic used by O'Reilly to support his side of the argument.  This is just one example of how logical fallacies are used in the media today and how it impacts the way that society thinks.

3 comments:

  1. I agree O'Reilly often makes a hasty generalization without actually having any facts to back it up, and he uses fear mongering as well. Nice article!

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  2. I like this article, I agree that the fallacies in the media that shape the beliefs of many people are dangerous and hurtful to our society.

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  3. I agree with your analysis of Bill O'Reilly's hasty generalizations. He uses many logical fallacies and a lot of half-truths to create a persuasive argument.

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