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Hey all, this question I got right but in reviewing it I am trying to figure out how C helps to explain the trend.
19. As often now as in the past, newspaper journalists use direct or indirect quotes to report unsupported or false claims made by news makers. However, journalists are becoming less likely to openly challenge the veracity of such claims within their articles.
Each of the following, if true, help to explain this trend in journalism as described above, EXCEPT?

C.Persons supporting controversial views more and more frequently choose to speak only to reporters who seem sympathetic to their views.

How does C. help explain the trend?

If they only choose to speak with reporters who are sympathetic to their views, they won't openly challenge the claims made because the general public won't necessarily be sympathetic to their views. At least that was my rationale for crossing this answer off.

Thanks Supra for the reply, maybe I'm just warped from class this week, but I still am not making sense of it. If anyone else can clarify what C. is actually saying and how it relates to the current trend would be greatly appreciated.

twairlines wrote:Thanks Supra for the reply, maybe I'm just warped from class this week, but I still am not making sense of it. If anyone else can clarify what C. is actually saying and how it relates to the current trend would be greatly appreciated.

Yeah, that didn't really make any sense to me either.

Soo... basically answer choice C says that back in the day if you had a controversial viewpoint (for example, we should not automatically grant citizenship to people born in the US) you'd talk to just about anyone. A lot of the journalists you talked to would probably think you're nuts, maybe a borderline fascist and would criticize your claims. Nowadays, people are more likely to only talk to people who are sympathetic to your views. So you'd go to Fox News and Sean Hannity would call you a patriot. So if that's true of all sorts of people with controvertial points of view, then there's fewer opportunities for any journalists to dispute the veracity of anyone's claims, since they're only talking to people they agreed with anyway.