I started college and became involved in campus media almost simultaneously in the fall of 2014. Believe it or not, this was a time when the Presidential Election was nothing more than a faint conversation in the air, a speculation of whether or not we'd be having a blast from the past with a Clinton or Bush ticket in two years or if Joe Biden would be throwing his cap in. It's hard to remember such a time, especially given the way we've been saturated with talk of the stuff over the past six months, but trust me, there was a point when discussing the election was only and all in good fun.
It was then exciting during the summer before my sophomore year, when I became the Associate News Director at my college radio station, and candidates we'd guessed and some we would never have been able to think of started to announce their runs for the highest office in our country. I was looking forward to covering it, every moment, live on the airwaves.
Things quickly became less peachy once I got my feet wet.
It is not news that this election cycle has been one of the nastiest in American history. It was only reinforced for me when I recently had to put together a radio piece of quotes from the past year that were said by and about the candidates. Childish and vicious remarks about people's bodies and intellects, screaming matches that came to endings in hissed hysterical comments, and completely baffling remarks regarding everything from past histories to opinions on races, classes, and genders filled these audio clips. These were and are the people we are prepared to elect to represent our country this week, and in the words of Joe Biden, it really all has been "a load of malarkey."
Coming from a county that is bound to red in Upstate New York while living in Democratic Manhattan smack dab in between the campaign headquarters of both of the mainstream candidates, I've come to realize something: people don't know a heck of a lot about policy issues, but they do know who they don't like and stand in solidarity against one thing. That's the media.
As a member of the media, I can recognize that we're not perfect. Organizations are definitely biased in their reporting and it frequently comes down to ratings. It's a business like everything else. However, the media is not the reason why Donald Trump called people stupid or talked about the size of his penis while asked about a budgetary question. The media did not decide to reopen Hillary Clinton's email case or poke her until she yelled back about her mistakes regarding the Iraq War. We've just been there covering it. We don't change the way people act. So if Americans choose not to look into things for themselves, that is on them, not on the one news channel they chose to watch that evening. Informing yourself from various sources is the key.
My first election season as a member of the media has, ultimately, taught me a lot, including the reality of how media is regarded in this country. The reactions scare me almost as much as the voters. It has, frankly, turned me away from the career as a whole, for I would suspect that the blame game will continue into this week as the final ballots are turned in. Angry Americans on whichever side falls will point their fingers at Anderson Cooper or Bret Baier from their couches and claim their failure is in part their doing. They won't be entirely wrong, but they certainly won't be right. And no one will report that fact.
But hey, who knows how this will play out? All of the polls and the experts, the on the ground interviews and the campaign managers smiling and nodding really tells us nothing about what the aftermath of this vicious election season will be like, and in a year that has also included the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series, who knows what other unthinkable craziness could follow. All I can hope is that it's as positive for the country as this baseball series has been, and that I'll have a lot less stress trying to cover it.
