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An essay about the potential negative effects of introducing news channels to school curricula reads in its bottom line:

Secondly, if international news were to become a new subject it could have a detrimental emotional impact on young minds .. The logic of having these types of stories beamed into a school to those of an impressionable age has to be challenged. Thus the obligation of watching news of a negative nature makes for a convincing argument against such an innovation.

What's the meaning of make for here? The only meaning that, in my opinion, could suit the context were :

Tend to result in or be received as (a particular thing) Oxford Dictionaries [online]

But, then again it doesn't make sense. What does make for mean here?

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    @J.R.: good Google-fu :) The added extra context makes an explanation a lot easier!
    – oerkelens
    Commented Nov 18, 2014 at 12:21

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The sentence would mean the pretty much the same thing if you used the word is instead of the expression makes for:

Thus the obligation of watching news of a negative nature is a convincing argument against such an innovation.

The phrase makes for adds a subtle hint of consequentiality. In other words, the previous points make a strong case against the premise, and build upon each other.

In this case, it's one thing to watch negative news, it's another to be forced to watch news, and yet another for children to watch news. But the idea of forcing a child to watch negative news makes for a strong case against bringing televised news to school classrooms (at least in this writer's mind).

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The definition you found makes perfect sense, actually.

Thus the obligation of watching news of a negative nature tends to be received as a convincing argument against such an innovation.

In other words:

So, [the obligation of watching news of a negative nature] seems to be [a convincing argument against such an innovation].

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  • Thank you for you reply. It's helpful, but, honestly, i'm still confused. this time then the problem seems to be with obligation. Would you mind telling what it means here? again the only sense i can take it to is commitment or something similar. Thank you for your time.
    – Itsme
    Commented Nov 18, 2014 at 10:01
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    Obligation simply means something you have to do. So “The fact that we have to watch news of a negative nature”. This fact is an argument against such an innovation.
    – oerkelens
    Commented Nov 18, 2014 at 10:14

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