SAMPLE ESSAY 4

Read the following passage, and think about how the author uses:

•          Evidence, such as applicable examples, to justify the argument.
•          Reasoning to show logical connections among thoughts and facts.
•          Rhetoric, like sensory language and emotional appeals, to give weight to the argument. 

Adapted from Peter S. Goodman, “Foreign News at a Crisis Point.” By the HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. Originally published September 25, 2013. Peter Goodman is the executive business and global news editor at TheHuffingtonPost.com.

       Back in 2003, American Journalism Review produced a census of foreign correspondents then employed by newspapers based in the United States, and found 307 full-time people. When AJR repeated the exercise in the summer of 2011, the count had dropped to 234. And even that number was significantly inflated by the inclusion of contract writers who had replaced full-time staffers.

       In the intervening eight years, 20 American news organizations had entirely eliminated their foreign bureaus.

      

          The same AJR survey zeroed in a representative sampling of American papers from across the country and found that the space devoted to foreign news had shrunk by 53 percent over the previous quarter-century.

   

          All of this decline was playing out at a time when the U.S was embroiled in two overseas wars, with hundreds of thousands of Americans deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was happening as domestic politics grappled with the merits and consequences of a global war on terror, as a Great Recession was blamed in part on global imbalances in savings, and as world leaders debated a global trade treaty and pacts aimed at addressing climate change. It unfolded as American workers heard increasingly that their wages and job security were under assault by competition from counterparts on the other side of oceans.

       In short, news of the world is becoming palpably more relevant to the day-to-day experiences of American readers, and it is rapidly disappearing.

       Yet the same forces that have assailed print media, eroding foreign news along the way, may be fashioning a useful response. Several nonprofit outlets have popped up to finance foreign reporting, and a for-profit outfit, Goalpost, has dispatched a team of 18 senior correspondents into the field, supplemented by dozens of stringers and freelancers………

       We are intent on forging fresh platforms for user-generated content: testimonials, snapshots and video clips from readers documenting issues in need of attention. Too often these sorts of efforts wind up feeling marginal or even patronizing: “Dear peasant, here’ s your chance to speak to the pros about what’ s happening in your tiny little corner of the world”. We see user-generated content as a genuine reporting tool, one that operates on the premise that we can only be in so many places at once. Crowd-sourcing is a fundamental advantage of the web, so why not embrace it as a means of piecing together a broader and more textured understanding of events?

   

         We all know the power of Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media to connect readers in one place with images and impressions from situations unfolding far away. We know the force of social media during the Arab Spring, as activists convened and reacted to changing circumstances……...Facts and insights reside on social media, waiting to be harvested by the digitally literate contemporary correspondent.

        And yet those of us who have been engaged in foreign reporting for many years will confess to unease over many of the developments unfolding online, even as we recognize the trends are as unstoppable as globalization or the weather. Too often it seems as if professional foreign correspondents, the people paid to use their expertise while serving as informational filters, are being replaced by citizens journalists who function largely as funnels, pouring insight along with speculation, propaganda and other white noise into the mix.

     

         We can celebrate the democratization of media, the breakdown of monopolies, the rise of innovative means of telling stories, and the inclusion of a diversity of voices, and still ask whether the results are making us better informed. Indeed, we have a professional responsibility to continually ask that question while seeking to engineer new models that can channel the web in the interest of better-informing readers…………

      

          We need to embrace the present and gear for the future. These are days in which newsrooms simply must be entrepreneurial and creative in pursuit of new means of reporting and paying for it. That makes this a particularly interesting time be doing the work, but it also requires forthright attention to a central demand: We need to put back what the internet has taken away. We need to turn the void into something fresh and compelling. We need to re-examine and update how we gather information and how we engage readers while retaining the core values of serious-minded journalism.

     This will not be easy………. But the alternative-accepting ignorance and parochialism-is simply not an option.

 Write an essay in which you explain how Peter S. Goodman builds an argument to persuade his audience that news organizations should increase the amount of professional foreign news coverage provided to people in the United States. In your essay, analyze how Goodman uses one or more of the features listed in the box above (or features of your own choice) to strengthen the logic and persuasiveness of his argument. Be sure that your analysis focuses on the most relevant features of the passage.

                   Full Top-Scoring Response

Media presentation from across the globe is vital to the upkeep and maintenance of our society. How this information is obtained and presented, if presented at all, is a different story, however. Goodman builds an argument to persuade his audience that news organizations should increase the amount of professional foreign news coverage to the Americas through the presentation of statistics, connections to social media as well as be using specific diction to establish his argument.

Goodman uses statistics and facts, as presented by the AJR, in order to show the loss of foreign correspondents reporting to the U.S in order to persuade his audience that there is a need for more professional coverage. He begins his essay with the statistic saying that the level of professional foreign correspondents dropped from 307 full-time people to 234. This conveys that the number of people providing legitimate and credible information to the news services in the U.S is going down, thus alluding to the overall decrease in foreign Media. Goodman uses this to build his argument by envoking his audience to think that they may not be getting all the true media and facts presented. He uses the statistic of the shrinking correspondents to establish the fact that if this number is continually decreasing, there may be in the future a lack of unbiased media presentation, asking his audience to consider the importance of foreign news coverage.

Goodman connects to the vast implications of bias presented via social media to further build his argument. Reporters “know the power of Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media” and, as they continue to rise in popularity in the distribution of media, are enabling the genesis of “citizen journalists who function largely as funnels…….. pouring white noise into the mix”. Goodman further builds his argument here in order to persuade his audience by showing how with the rise of social media, more biased and superfluous information can be projected and wrongly viewed.

Goodman says this to evoke a concern within his audience about the truth in media. Blatantly put, Goodman accounts for that if you want unbiased foreign media people must turn from social media such as Twitter and Facebook and turn toward professional foreign media presentation. Presenting this idea of possible fallacy within social media greatly establishes his purpose as well as affirms his audience on whether they agree with him or not.

Also, Goodman uses specific diction to further establish his argument to persuade his audience. Goodman uses personal pronouns such as “we” to show that he personally is a part of the media presentation community, not only establishing his credibility on the subject but also aiding in his persuasion of his audience by allowing them to think he is an expert in the field. Through his word choice, Goodman further establishes his argument by ascribing the need for the more foreign reporter not as a burden but as a challenge. This adds to the persuasion of his audience by showing them that this is a real problem and that there are people rising up to it, and so should they.

Goodman’ s use of up-to-date references as well as connections to social media, use of statistics, and diction establish his argument of the need for more foreign reporters as well as persuading his audience of the need to do so.