Rhetorical Analysis Of Crooks And Liars And Townhall

To make sense of current news and media, it is crucial to understand the importance of techniques that authors use to attract their target audience. Crooks and Liars is a progressive news and media site that uses liberal content and other strategies to appeal to Democrats. Conversely, Townhall is a conservative news site that uses Republican content and similar strategies to attract a Republican audience. Although they express different views, Crooks and Liars and Townhall use the same strategies, logical fallacies and rhetorical appeals, to reach their target audiences. The logical fallacy, ad hominem, is committed throughout multiple articles in Crooks and Liars where an author uses irrelevant arguments to attack a person rather than attacking the issues. In the article, “Newsom Shoots Down Welker's Ageist Nonsense

In the article, “'Deadbeat' Republican Called Out Over Hypocrisy With Student Debt,” the author states that “more than 40 million individuals collectively owe more than $1.6 trillion in back-breaking student debt” (Kennard, 2024, n.p.). Kennard uses this statistic as a way to justify calling the Republican representative, Ashley Hinson, a hypocrite. He states that “her husband's company had a PPP [Paycheck Protection Program] loan of $143,043 forgiven” and that this “hypocrisy isn't new for Hinson'' because she “touted the Infrastructure bill she voted against” (Kennard, 2024, n.p.). Given the statistic that more than 40 million Americans owe about $1.6 trillion in debt, Kennard allows to make clear and logical connections between the hypocrisy of the Republican Party and the millions of individuals who struggle with debt. One of the Democrats' fundamental ideologies focuses on the relief of student debt, so by using this issue and applying logos to it, it reasonably appeals to the target