Did you identify who this was written for? Who was the intended audience and what was the purpose
Heh. When I see what is in the first paragraph and that type of generalization, and logical fallacies then the rest of what they have to say tends to be discarded by me.
When the foundation is already false, why read the fiction built on top of that other than being bored, or feeling like reading fiction?
This is very common in a lot of the press I see daily when I am putting together the @newsagg headlines.
I think "propagandists" tend to weaponize logical fallacies that the public tends to buy into rather than avoid them.
Why do they use appeal to emotion? It works.
Why do they use appeal to authority? It works.
Why do they ridicule and use appeal to the stone? It works.
Why do they use "consensus" and appeal to popularity? It works.
Why do they use appeal to tradition (it's always been this way)? It works.
At least if you haven't been trained to look for those fallacy techniques, or as in my case had an initial hint of this area of knowledge the educational system is increasingly avoiding teaching and researched it myself. It took awhile for the seeds to truly begin to grow, but critical thinking, and particularly learning to identify these fallacies has been life changing for me. There are proverbial red flags all around me.
So if you are writing and you are using those in your writing then yes that would make you a propagandist. If you are writing and avoiding those things as best as possible then I'd say that is what separates a propagandist from a true journalist in the "traditional" sense of the word. (Now you decide, is that an appeal to tradition?)
Why do we use truth and logic? Because we like being right and losing arguments? ^_^
Losing an argument is an opportunity to learn. We should all like that.
Indeed, it is.