Some critics claim that the power of the media to impose opinions upon people concerning the important issues of the day is too great.
Conclusion (This shows that)
The critics' claim is false. rephrase: The media's power to impose their opinions on important issues is not too great.
Evidence
If the media's range of opinion on important issues was narrower than that of consumers, then the media's power to impose opinions would be too great.
But their range of opinion on important issues is not narrower than that of consumers.
Evaluate
Whenever we're doing Flaw and we see the author making a rebuttal, we anticipate two likely options: 1. Ad Hominem -- the author dismisses a point of view because the source has a biased interest or has conflicting past behavior.
2. Unproven vs. Untrue -- the author shows that one attempt to prove X failed and then concludes that X is false
When we're doing Flaw and we see the author introduce a conditional logic premise, we anticipate that she will apply it illegally in a reversed or opposite fashion.
This argument had both components, since the author is rebutting and is using a conditional premise.
The author's argument looks like this: If X were the case, then critics would be right X is not the case. Thus, the critics are not right.
That's analogous to this argument: If Joe were in LA, then he would be in America. Joe is not in LA. Thus, Joe is not in America.
Goal
We can call out the author's necessary vs. sufficient error, since she reasoned via an illegal negation.
Or we can call out the authors unproven vs. proven false move. Just because one argument for the claim that "media has too much power to impose opinion" fails (since it's based on the dubious assumption that ) doesn't mean that the conclusion "media has too much power to impose opinion" is false.