> a blatant appeal to authority This isn't really an appeal to authority. The claim "has broken more major stories than almost anyone alive" is suggesting that

> a blatant appeal to authority This isn't really an appeal to authority. The claim "has broken more major stories than almost anyone alive" is suggesting that the probability of the current story being true is higher, given the unusually large number of successful stories previously published by the reporter. The claim isn't that we should listen to the reporter because he is some sort of expert or that is he occupies a position of authority. Any problem with inferring the probability of a new event from a record of past events would would be an error in the inductive inference. (i.e. the black swan problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Inductive_categorical_inference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Inductive_catego... )