Jon Stewart? Let's leave it there...

In the video,"CNN Leaves it There", Jon Stewart uncovers many of the fallacies that CNN tends to make continuously during their airings. Through their fallacies, I learned that many of their errors resulted from poor analysis techniques the announcers used to present their findings on television.

Through Stewarts criticism, he makes very clear and logical points that prove CNN is full of mistakes when it comes down to their "statistical data". Many of their numerical values that they used to prove their points become somewhat questionable. Stewart points out how and where on earth do these announcers claim their data? The announcers use a type of weak critical thinking to present their ideas. They use big numbers and "important words" to provide a very dramatic finding to their audience, but when their analysis is looked at and listened to more carefully, we see the ridiculousness of their findings. Many of the examples Stewart starts off with is how the announcers mention that 100-200 billion dollars can be saved if malpractice is prevented. When a careful calculation is made of the real savings, only 11 billion can be saved, realistically. Truly, CNN was off by more than they could ever bargain for. Unfortunately, another male announcer goes on to mention unrealistic data by saying that only 5 to 10 million are uninsured in America. Truly, numbers can't jump halves like that when presenting data that important.

Many of the announcers, as Stewart puts it, seem to be pulling their data, not from reliable, recognizable sources, but only from their heads. By pulling up tricks, they create a type of slippery slope fallacy, which leads to a series of "horrible" outcomes by stating problem after problem, without mentioning possible interferences that can lighten up the problems. By not proclaiming any possible ways to come out of the problems, they create a type of panic within the audience that leads the listeners to believe what they are stating.
As the video goes on, Stewart makes another claim on how CNN can't take the heat of being discovered. Put simply, when they can't explain something or don't have the means of showing proof for their obvious lies, they just simply run away from it by saying "Let's leave it there" and, well, that's it. They never come back to the topic; they just merely run away from it, avoiding the embarrassment of not being able to win whatever they were accounted for. Unfortunately, their running away and fake data just proves how horrible television can be when it comes to critical thinking.

This is possibly one of the most fake ways of using critical thinking. As Stewart puts it, their findings are just full of unnecessary lies. From this I learned that critical thinking can sometimes be misleading if not enough effort is made in claiming realistic arguments. A real argument is to be analyzed carefully by having logical sources as well as intellectual presentations that support your argument. A process of having the right tools at hand as well as showing your audience that you know you are an expert on your claim gives your critical thinking strength to show that you know what you are talking about. If your data is questionable an a bit hilarious due to its ludicrousness, then, simply put, let's not leave it there, lets just state that it's just horrible analysis.