The editor of a local newspaper sent the following memo to the managing editor of the paper:“Three years ago when we surveyed our subscribers, they complained about the quality of the reporting and writing in the paper. Since that time, we have made a con

While the older, more experienced journalists may help improve the quality of the paper , the reasons the editor puts through in asserting they are the cause for the are hardly cogent and are rife with holes and assumptions. The editor's attribution of the recent success of the paper to his senior journalists is incorrect unless more information is provided.

Firstly the editor uses only the two surveys to judge the quality of the writing and reporting in the paper , this is a mistake in itself. The surveys may not be exactly the same ; for example the first survey may have contained a lot of questions about the sports section where the consensus was poor and the second survey
might have contained a lot of questions on the business section which might have had a positive opinion. Also the two surveys may have been conducted between different subscribers with different opinions about the paper.

The editor would have done well to complement his argument with substantiated statistical evidence on how the act of hiring of more experienced journalists has helped in improving the reporting and writing quality . The editor also fails to mention if there are other possible reasons for improved subscriber growth , for
instance a rival newspaper could have been closed down on charges of corruption leading to the increased subscription of his paper.

While the hiring of experienced journalists may have helped in improving the paper , there is not enough information in the passage to suggest that this is the sole reason for the improvement . Without more detailed and complete information we have no other choice to assume the editor's argument falls flat.