Recently, President Donald Trump released a poll questioning the accountability of mainstream media. This was his second time releasing the “Mainstream Media Accountability Survey” after he made claims that the Democratic party swayed the initial survey results. Firstly, I would like to see some proof that the original results of this survey were tampered with. Every person has a right to answer a survey honestly regardless of personal political views, it is wrong for a leader such as the president to scrap the survey when it appears the only issue with it was that he didn’t approve of the results. His newest survey asks many questions that are targeted at specific media outlets and leaves little room for opinions that may not match his own. I won’t even start on the bias of most of these questions, but you can check it out for yourself by following this link https://action.trump2016.com/trump-mms-survey.
For a long time now, I have avoided commenting on politics, but an attack on the media is an attack on my future and it is an issue I simply can’t avoid. There is something that needs to be made very clear regarding the media that people aren’t talking about. Almost every single media source that exists contains some level of bias. People will claim their favorite media outlets are non-partisan or are the only ones reporting the truth, but this is not the case.
As I mentioned in a previous article, most media sources use agenda setting. There are several levels of this theory, the first being that the media is successful in telling the public what to think about. The second level is that the media not only tells the public what to think about, but also what opinion to have. What people need to realize is that if they only consume media from a single source, they will always succeed at this second level of agenda setting.
Every media outlet has their own opinion surrounding the truth, therefore it is impossible to say that any one outlet is honest while others are dishonest. There are different perspectives on the truth. Additionally, there are cases of misinformation within the media, showing not a lack of fact checking, but simply inaccurate sources for those facts. If the public is genuinely concerned about the integrity of news, the only solution is to allow more opinions in, rather than restrict certain outlets.
At a recent White House briefing, President Donald Trump barred several media outlets he considered “fake” from attending. The list included CNN, The New York Times, BBC, and a few other popular and well established sources. Sources such as Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and NBC are among those which were permitted to cover the event. Even some of the approved media outlets were outraged by this decision, claiming they wouldn’t have participated in the briefing had they known these actions would be taken.
In my first article regarding the ethics of media, I couldn’t decide if I valued honesty or freedom of the press more. Now that America is in danger of losing freedom of the press I have decided that it is far more important than I previously assumed. Every single outlet has some bias, that’s just the way it is. People should be able to form their own opinions on important issues across America. The only way to form an opinion that is uniquely your own is to look at a range of sources and opinions so you can decide for yourself what you do and don’t agree with. “Fake News” is a term that simply represents news of different opinions and perspectives. If we only have access to one perspective, then how are we supposed to form our own understanding? Most media are successful at directing the topics we think about, but if we destroy the variety of opinion in media, then we will no longer be able to think for ourselves. An attack on the media is an attack on my future, it is an attack on our freedom, and it is an attack on independence of thought.
