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Pointing out that a source is likely not impartial because they are a professional PR specialist is hardly an ad hominem. From the author's page: "Keith uses t

Pointing out that a source is likely not impartial because they are a professional PR specialist is hardly an ad hominem. From the author's page: "Keith uses the power of strategic communications along with his experience as a lawyer and company co-founder to secure maximum leverage for his clients. His individual and team recognitions include the PR News Award for Outstanding Media Exposure (Business Development); The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences Webby Award Official Honoree; and the American Bar Association Award of Excellence (for writing). Keith is based in New York City." Granted, correlation is not causation and it's theoretically possible for the good Mr. Emmer to have a long standing interest in journalistic freedom. (A cursory Googling of his name and the obvious keywords shows no evidence of such history.) But would anyone here care to bet much money on it?

drumdance 10y ago
In fairness, his opinion is probably consistent with the views of the editors at Reuters.
evanpw 10y ago
Ad hominem is when "an argument is rebutted by attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself." [1]. This clearly seems to fit. Ad hominem is not always a fallacy: if there were some new facts presented, or if the argument was so complicated that you couldn't evaluate its validity yourself (like happens often in science and other technical fields), then the source of the argument would be relevant. Neither of those is true in this case. The article's argument isn't very convincing to me on its own merits, but I don't see how it's made worse by the fact that the author may have been paid to write it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

drumdance 10y ago

In fairness, his opinion is probably consistent with the views of the editors at Reuters.

evanpw 10y ago

Ad hominem is when "an argument is rebutted by attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself." [1]. This clearly seems to fit. Ad hominem is not always a fallacy: if there were some new facts presented, or if the argument was so complicated that you couldn't evaluate its validity yourself (like happens often in science and other technical fields), then the source of the argument would be relevant. Neither of those is true in this case. The article's argument isn't very convincing to me on its own merits, but I don't see how it's made worse by the fact that the author may have been paid to write it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem