What Americans Want

One of the main reasons I find it difficult to watch news on TV (besides the fact that it is rarely ever news) is obnoxious news anchors.  I was sitting in a waiting area while my oil was being changed, and there was a TV displaying some random news show.  The anchor brought on some guests, and they discussed something or another about Obama or whatnot.

What really got me is one woman who kept repeating the line, "What Americans want is...".  How does she know what all Americans want?

Well, all she was doing was making an educated guess.

But I think it's more than that.  She was not only trying to convince the viewer of what they want, but more importantly convince them of what other people want.

I can think of two good comparisons.  The first is advertising.  If you see an advertisement, let's say for a new cereal, Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, the goal isn't to make you drive to a store to buy the cereal.  It wants you to think better of the cereal, so when you go to the store later that week, you might buy them when you are in the cereal aisle.  A lot of advertisements also feature people enjoying a product or service.  This is to convince you that other people like it, so you should too.  The woman on this news program was using an advertising tactic in her argument, trying to convince you that her observation is correct.  The second comparison is to fortune-telling.  It is actually really simple - you just make a fortune wide enough that it covers every single person.  It is easy to take something vague and convince yourself that it is true to your life.  The news woman's argument is just like this.  She can make any assertion she wants, and most viewers will tend to agree with it.