Show an expensive option first and the second option seems reasonable. Anchoring, in the classic formulation, and it works even when the first number is obviously arbitrary.
In reporting, this shows up as sequence. A budget increase looks modest after a paragraph about a larger one elsewhere. A price looks fair after a comparison to a more expensive alternative that nobody was considering.
The manipulation is not in either number. It is in the order.
Reading defence: when a comparison appears, ask whether the comparison class was chosen or given. If the article could have picked a different baseline and the conclusion would flip, the baseline is doing the argument's work.
This one feels underdiscussed relative to how mechanical it is. Most media literacy material I have seen focuses on claims, not on arrangement.
Is anyone aware of tooling that looks at document structure — ordering, placement, emphasis — rather than sentence-level claims?
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