Comment by akst

I guess I had public discourse in mind when I was saying people to readily invoke claims of bias. Also alternative media which tends to be on the other extreme of being overly cynical.

If PM appeared on the news obviously no one would believe them.

That said in Australia we in the last few years we’ve increased the cigarette tax, smoking hasn’t really decreased, but treasury has reported decreased revenue. It clearly looks like the tax has been increased too high if sellers are illegally selling untaxed cigarettes.

It would be very dumb of a cigarette company like PM to come out and point this out (as it would just be a springboard for proponents of the tax to play attack others pointing it out the issue atm), but if they did, it wouldn’t mean it’s not happening. Even if they have a bias it would be irrelevant.

Speculation around bias is just treated too much of smoking gun, and claims of it are more often motivated reasoning not critical thinking.