February 28, 2005
February 21, 2005
Charles' contribution
Our author, Clint Rainey, knows his audience very well because he is part of it. The audience is college students at the University of Texas, and being one Clint Rainey can really hit on the things he knows will resonate with them. Ethos is the way in which the author wants to be perceived by his audience in order to bring them over to his side of the argument. The author wants the audience to trust him and believe in what he is telling them. I believe that Rainey does a good job in establishing this trust by his use of humor. Knowing that his audience, college kids, are viewed as a cynical group who appreciate humor, Rainey does his best to inject humor into his argument that the media's handling of this years election was as bad if not worse than in 2000. An example of this humor can be find in the sixth paragraph of the first page of the article where Rainey talks about a "mum rule" that prevents the reporter from saying anything of value, then says he is going to abandon this rule and just call a few swing states, "albeit selectively." (Rainey)A second example of this humor is in the fourth paragraph where, "although bans on gay marriage passed by huge margins in eleven states, I don't feel comfortable calling the ballot measures, I'll just call them too close to call." (Rainey) Another type of claim that Rainey uses well in trying to prove his point is pathos. In this type of claim Rainey uses emotions to try and get the audience to believe in his point of view concerning the argument. The humor I was describing earlier goes along with the idea of using emotions to bring the audience to his side. Since we've already discussed the humor part I will go into another emotion Rainey uses, and that is disdain for the reporters who covered the election. Rainey tries to get the reader to feel this way by ridiculing one of the reporters in two paragraphs. The example comes from the third paragraph on the second page of the article where Rainey highlights the bias of the reporter by describing how the reporter at one point, ".mulling over out loud every scenario that will give Kerry victory, at one point defying logic and math by claiming that Kerry can win even if Bush gets Ohio." (Rainey) By ridiculing the reporter in showing his unabashed bias towards Kerry, Rainey uses the disdain he has raised in the reader toward the reporter to further press his claim that the media, by being biased and unprepared fouled up the coverage of this election as much as the one in 2000. The final category of claims is logos, or the use of facts to try and convince your audience of the validity of your argument. Rainey uses facts in his article to try and show the reader that he has a grasp on his subject, and by showing that he has a grasp on the subject Rainey can get the audience to further believe in his credibility and the point of his argument. The best example of the use of facts is Rainey's knowledge of the raw data of votes in certain states for the respective candidates. In the seventh and eight paragraphs on the first page of the article Rainey shows us the different states and the margins of voters for and against the candidates, and by using this data he shows the further bias of the networks by showing that in Pennsylvania while John Kerry had a 121,458 vote lead the state was called in his favor, but in Ohio where Bush actually had a 136,483 vote lead the race was deemed to close to call. In bringing this to the attention of the reader that not only is it his opinion that the networks bias affected the coverage of the election, but that the raw data also shows the same bias, reinforcing his claim. All in all whether it be ethos, logos, or pathos Clint Rainey uses the different types of claims to show his audience that in fact bias is prevalent in the networks coverage of the election and that it affected the election in a negative way almost equivalent or equivalent to the debacle of the 2000 presidential election.