Critical Reasoning

Political advocacy groups have begun to use information services to disseminate information
that is then accessed by the public via personal computer. Since many groups are thus able to
bypass traditional news sources, whose reporting is selective, and to present their political
views directly to the public, information services present a more balanced picture of the
complexities of political issues than any traditional news source presents. Which of the
following is an assumption on which the argument above depends?
A. Information services are accessible to enough people to ensure that political advocacy groups
can use these services to reach as large a percentage of the public as they could through
traditional news sources.
B. People could get a thorough understanding of a particular political issue by sorting through
information provided by several traditional news sources, each with differing editorial biases.
C. Information on political issues disseminated through information services does not come
almost entirely from advocacy groups that share a single bias.
D. Traditional news sources seldom report the views of political advocacy groups accurately.
E. Most people who get information on political issues from newspapers and other traditional
news sources can readily identify the editorial biases of those sources.

OA C

Question stem:

Information given by political advocacy groups using information services reach public directly. Moreover, this information unlike information in traditional news sources is more balanced because it avoids selective rating. Thus, information pushed by political advocacy groups via information services provide a more balanced picture than any other traditional news source presents.

Here the information via information source and traditional news sources is compared based on outreach. Since no comment is given on outreach of traditional news sources, there should be something else assumed in question stem. What if the information posted by political groups is already biased? If true then the argument breaks! This is what C states.

Hope it helps.

Here's how I led myself through this one:

Question Type: Assumption

Notice the word "depends" in the question-step, so this is going to be something that HAS to be true in order for the Conclusion to hold up. So before I even start reading the paragraph, I'm already deeply invested in what the Conclusion will be.

NOTES:

Evidence:
Info Service ----> Personal Comp ----> Public
Info Service bypasses Traditional
Traditional is selective.

Conclusion:
Info Service is more balanced.

WHY IS THIS ARGUMENT BAD? The author is essentially saying IS (info service) is more balanced than TN (traditional news) because IS bypasses it. Isn't it possible for IS to bypass TN and ALSO be biased? The author is assuming that both these things cannot be true.

Assumption: You can't bypass TN and also be biased.

Even if the answer choices don't give us this verbatim, I expect the scope of the correct answer to focus on the ideas of "bypassing" and "balanced."

(C) is the only choice that even comes close to our prediction. (C) says "IS is NOT biased." Since "IS" is what we mean when we say "bypass TN," it must be correct.