As the election draws closer, the race gets more and more intense. Along with that, Donald Trump gets hotter and hotter with the attacks he is making against many groups of people. Recently, he has been all over calling out the media. In the article, A majority of voters agree: The media is biased against Trump, by Jennifer Harper, a poll done by Quinnipiac University is cited as discovering that 55 percent of likely voters agree with Trump that the press is out to get him. More specifically, “88 percent of Republicans cite media bias against the GOP nominee — along with 61 percent of independents, 61 percent of men, 60 percent of those ages 18-to-34 years, 51 percent of those 31-to-49, 56 percent of the 50-to-64 crowd and 52 percent of those over 65. Wait, there’s more: 66 percent of those with no college degree cite media bias, along with 51 percent of those who have a degree. Among those who don’t agree: 45 percent of “non-whites,” 49 percent of women and predictably, 20 percent of Democrats.”[1] I find this to be a very interesting poll, because as we know, the media is the number one influencer of poll numbers. Therefore, if people find that the media is being unfair to Trump, they should be more inclined to empathize with him, and allow him to explain himself. On the contrary, one does not have to agree with Trump and his policies and rhetoric to believe that the media is against him. The media has not exposed false things about him. Despite the media, potentially, treating him unfairly, the controversy that they uncover, that is true, does not give Trump a good name. As we discussed in class, the job of the media, after making money from interesting stories, is to provide information that would be in the best interest of the public to know.
If Donald Trump were to be elected president, his relationship with the media would be extremely detrimental to the image of the office of the American presidency. The media is where everyone gets their information from. If Donald Trump is someone that media dislikes, it will criticize every move that he makes. When being looked at by other countries, the leadership of our country will look weak, unstable, out of control, and questioned by its people. Those qualities are not what people of potentially friendly nations want to see when deciding whether or not to work with us. The president should use the media in an attempt to get his or her agenda done. In other words, the president should attempt to develop a positive relationship with the media, so that the media will support him or her, and subsequently, the leadership will be respected and desired by the people. Contrary to Trump, per class discussion 96 percent of political donations made from the media went to Hillary Clinton, this election cycle. That is both good and bad. On the outside, this shows that the media supports Clinton and will give her the benefit of the doubt when reporting. However, it could also lead to Clinton being, in a way, controlled by the media, legislating by what the media desires. There needs to be a middle ground where the president is not sought out to be destroyed by the media, but at the same time, the president should not be controlled by the media.
Whether we like it or not, the media controls what we are exposed to on a daily basis. It uses specific tactics, statistics, stories, etc. to influence a group of people in a certain way. As common people, we need to be more devoted to doing our own research, and making sure that we understand the full truth behind the stories we are exposed to.
[1] Jennifer Harper, “A majority of voters agree: The media is biased against Trump,” The Washington Times, October 20, 2016, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/20/voters-agree-media-biased-against-donald-trump/.
