AFRONTAMIENTO DEL ESTRÉS LABORAL

The following appeared in an announcement issued by the publisher of The Mercury, a weekly newspaper.

"Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago, The Mercury’s circulation has declined by 10,000 readers. The best way to get more people to read The Mercury is to reduce its price below that of The Bugle, at least until circula-tion increases to former levels. The increased circulacircula-tion of The Mercury will attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper."

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.

Understand the argument

The publisher announced that The Mercury’s circulation started declining upon The Bugle’s entry and has now declined by 10,000 readers. The publisher implies that the circulation has dropped because The Bugle is a lower-priced newspaper. The publisher is planning to reduce the price of The Mercury to make it cheaper than The Bugle. This move, according to the publisher, would not only increase circulation, but also fetch advertisers.

Faulty assumptions

• No other reason for decline of The Mercury’s circulation

• Only lowering the price would be enough to lure readers back to The Mercury

• The Bugle wouldn’t also lower its price to retain its customers

• A newspaper’s circulation is the only factor that the advertisers look at

• Raising prices later would not cause circulation to decline again

Missing evidence

• The Bugle is directly responsible for reducing The Mercury’s circulation by 10,000 readers

• Proof that readers are only concerned about a newspaper’s price and the advertisers are only concerned about a newspaper’s circulation

• The situation of the market, whether the public is interested in newspapers

• Proof that The Mercury itself did not lose its circulation through some fault of its own

Counter-examples

• What if The Mercury’s quality has declined, causing the readers to switch to The Bugle?

• What if some other newspaper has snatched the readers from The Mercury?

• What if people are no longer interested in newspapers and have moved to digital media?

• What if cutting prices starts price wars that cause deep losses and are impossible to sustain?

• Even if the plan is successful, when The Mercury raises its price, wouldn’t the circulation drop and advertisers leave?

Having analyzed the argument, you should start writing the essay. Note that you need not take any position. You must evaluate the strengths and the weaknesses of the argument.

While writing the essay, your mind may churn out new ideas. If they strengthen your analysis, you should include them. There is no need to include all the points written above, however the most important ones must figure in the essay.

The essay

The publisher of the Mercury has implied in an announcement that The Bugle, a competing newspaper, is responsible for reducing The Mercury’s circulation by being lower-priced. It con-cludes that The Mercury should reduce its price to increase circulation while simultaneously attracting more advertisers. The argument is flawed in not considering alternative causes of the current situation, thereby relying on simplistic, incorrect assumptions.

To begin with, to state that The Mercury’s circulation declined by 10,000 readers over a five-year period only since a lower-priced competitor showed up is to assume that a newspaper’s circulation depends only on the pricing. This view is oversimplified and illogical because it does not take into consideration other factors that may have affected The Mercury’s circula-tion. Problems within The Mercury itself could have reduced its circulation; problems such as sliding quality, production issues, etc.; thus blaming The Bugle alone for declining circu-lation is incorrect. In fact, it hasn’t even been established that the 10,000 readers that have moved away from The Mercury have switched to the Bugle! It is possible that the circulation has declined because the readers have moved to digital media, leaving both The Mercury and The Bugle, and any other newspaper, suffering reduced circulation. In light of these multiple possibilities, taking a myopic view is completely illogical.

Even if one were to accept the assumption that the lower price of its competitor is responsible for the reduced circulation of The Mercury, it would be unreasonable to assume that merely reducing its own price lower than The Bugle would attract both readers and advertisers. As-suming that people’s and advertisers’ sentiments are easily swayed, what if The Bugle, along with the other newspapers, if any, launches a price war? Merely reducing prices to attract more business can easily backfire because such a move needs potentially deep coffers and a lot of patience, five years at least as per the announcement. Also, simply cutting prices without determining whether it is sustainable over the long-term is fraught with risk. The publisher is also suspiciously quiet about how The Mercury would plan to keep the readers and the adver-tisers after having lured them with reduced prices.

What the publisher should do instead is analyze why the circulation has dropped, whether cost of production can be cut, and what alternative measures can increase The Mercury’s cir-culation. Jumping on a "me-too" bandwagon seldom works well. Had the publisher considered the various aspects discussed above, the argument would have been far more convincing than it is at present.