I’ve never been one for fallacious reasoning. I find it to be like filling a cupcake with a substance that tastes just like a cupcake. Pointless.
One fallacy in particular is just that. Pointless.
The false equivalence fallacy is one of the worst tasting cupcakes there are.
Fortunately, there are two ways to resolve or avoid the false equivalence fallacy.
- Either state both facts apart from each other or
- Don’t state the one that provides little to no support.
Yes, journalists are entitled to tell the whole truth, but in many cases, I believe the public and those arguing that a journalist didn’t tell the whole truth do a better job of covering the small factual disparity than what a journalist can do when they are already covering the larger and supported fact.
Yes, journalists have a responsibility to clarify and spell out inconsistencies and discrepancies in what sources are telling them. If they get handed that dreadful false equivalence cupcake, they have a right to cut it open and let the public taste it.
In addition to these reasons for breaking down the false equivalency fallacy, journalists cannot equally cover both sides of a story because there are almost always more sides than “both.”
On top of that, a focus of the journalist is to connect with his or her audience through informing them. You would never find anyone in the general public saying, “Hey, let’s actually compare apples to oranges.” No.
Compare apples to apples.
Compare oranges to oranges.
Let the public decide what it’s like when you put both into a fruit basket, a cup cake or whatever the hell the food of the week is.
