So is the appeal to ignorance. One need look no further than Fox News to find such an appeal -- what else can one say about a news site that has a regular featured financial columnist called "the capitalist pig?" Jonathan Hoenig who proudly calls himself by this title, plays into the readers' likely assumptions that greed is good is lauded for selecting the highest yield profile over one year, regardless of the fact that many readers may really want to be long-term investors -- the one with the most money wins, proclaims the "Cash it in Challenge" of Fox. The fine print of the challenge, however, reads that "is FOX News' policy that contributors disclose positions they hold in stocks they discuss, though positions may change. Readers of "Cashin' in Challenge" must take responsibility for their own investment decisions." Yet even though one might snidely observe that Fox News strikes the casual viewer as little else but a 24-hour exhibition of the appeal to ignorance fallacy, no less illustrious a publication than the New York Times also plays to a different set of reader biases, upholding conservative Californian governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's fondness for cigars, and making fun of anti-smoking advocates as zealous health nuts (note the additional use of hyperbole, in addition to the appeal to ignorance): "Along with sharing an uncommonly pleasurable pastime, we aficionados share a common paranoia that transcends class, creed, race, gender or the national origin of one's cigars. We fear that if past is prelude; the antismoking infidels will keep waging their jihad...

So in the spirit of sustaining the current cigar renaissance, I took it upon myself to seek sage advice for smoking safely through these perilous times." The language is more highfalutin than the cash it in challenge, but it still appeals to the reader's lowest common impulse -- Fox appeals to an ignorant desire for quick cash, the Times to a likely nicotine addiction on the part of its Business News reader.
Thus, fallacies are not particular to one media or one periodical -- they are everywhere and when making good decisions, facts not rhetoric must be the guide. This does not mean that one should never trust authority, or one's common sense instincts, of course. Even analogies between appropriate, like things and causes are occasionally useful -- but the reliance upon the source of the information alone, rather than considering its likely biases is dangerous, as well as to the fact that the source may be plying upon one's emotional desire to trust authority, one's gut, or what is familiar rather than what is logically tenable.

Works Cited

Hoenig, Jonathan (20 May 2005) "Cashing it in Challenge." Fox News Website. Retrieved 21 May 2005 at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,122620,00.html

Hurt, Harry III. (20 May 2005) "Freud and Schwarzenegger: Both Can't Be Wrong." Business News. The New York Times. Retrieved 21 May 2005 at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/21/business/21pursuits.html

Soprano Star in Depression Fight." (11 Mar 2005) BBC News. Retrieved 21 May 2005 at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4339889.stm

Why Live with Depression." (2005) Pfizer Company Website. Retrieved 21 May 2005 at http://www.lbracco.com/battlingdepression2005.htm