Election Media Coverage

With the election today, I think covering how the media portrays the elections would be a good topic to discuss. Biased or not, we observe how the media broadcasts the information of the election. For the past year, that's all TV news has been; candidates talking to cities, addressing current topics, debating against each other, etc. Frontline has made a study post about election coverage. It talks about how they can favor one candidate over the other and broadcast more to boost their ratings.

"The press doesn't favor certain candidates because it's engaged in a vast conspiracy...reporters like a good story," it claims. This is very true in my eyes. The public only likes to see what they find interesting. If Donald Trump is ranting poorly about immigrants in a debate, the odds are that clip will be the focal point for the next couple days news broadcasts. They show what we want.

The story talks about how Trump has dominated the most media coverage throughout the beginning of the election process. In my opinion, he's played it smart. The more coverage, the more your name is known. Is it biased that the media has broadcasted more of him than any other candidate? I don't believe so. He's playing to what the country sees. If we turn on the news and Trump is on, that's what we're going to watch. Not biased, but smart.

It's hard to say if it worked until the polls close. What we do know is the more coverage you have, the more your name is known and the more people will research the beliefs and ideas of those candidates.

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by Tony Black