Blog 4: Critique of blog article

In an article on Crooks and Liars, called "Bribery in Plain Sight: Trump Promises Needed Bridge 'After We Win", Frances Langum expresses his discontent with Trump and his new proposal on fixing the I-10 bridge. The website does not give any insight into the author, but based on reading the article it can be known that the author is not credible, shown by his use of bias and opinions with little real evidence to back up his actual claim. He claims that Trump is morally corrupt for bribing to fix the bridge if he is re-elected, which based on the fact that is opinionated and not able to be proven, it is automatically discredited, although he does add in some interesting facts which help to persuade others to have similar opinions as his own. Due to this claim it can be assumed that the intended audience are readers who disapprove of Trump and his ways and desire the bridge to be fixed. Langum notes that the bridge had been built in 1952, "expected to last for 50 years with a traffic load of 37,000 vehicles per day", although in 2016 there was around "80,000 vehicles per day" as well as it being "14 years past its original intended end of life", this helps to give the reader inside into why the matter is significant and shows how the President had been overlooking the problem for quite some time, a good tactic from the author. He also states that the "National Bridge Registry rated the bridge a 6.6 out of 100 on its safety scale" and how the "I-35 West Mississippi River Bridge in Minnesota had a rating of a 50 out of 100 when it collapsed in 2001, killing 13 people". In using these facts he is able to sway the reader away from Trump, and give insight into the matter at hand, but again the article is overall discredited due to how bias it is, along with how bias the website it was uploaded on is, but was effective in giving the reader insight and pushing them to support the same idea the author had.