Politics | Elizabeth Franceschini
It has always been known that
news organizations carry a certain political leaning – either liberal or
conservative – when reporting the news. This, of course, was no exception in
regards to the 2016 US presidential election. Reported news concerning the
election leaned so strongly towards a certain political ideology that it can
be said it was sometimes intentionally misleading and tried to sway the public
to hold a certain position towards a political party and its members. The surge
in biased reporting tried to influence electors to think favourably or
unfavourably towards a certain political candidate.
For example, CNN coined the
nickname “Clinton News Network” for constantly bashing Hillary Clinton’s
opponents, yet never holding her actions to the same degree of scrutiny, while
also encouraging American voters to use her campaign slogans. Furthermore,
Buzzfeed, a known liberal media company, released a dossier from an alleged
former British intelligence official, which showed that recently elected President
of the United States of America, Donald Trump, had strong ties to the Russian
government. This dossier was completely unverified, yet was still published by
Buzzfeed.
These instances raise a big question: can news outlets spread
accurate information without being politically biased? In my opinion, news
outlets do have the right to hold a certain political leaning, as long as the
information spread does not obstruct or divert from the truth. I also believe
that media outlets must be held accountable in an age of fake news, and that
the public should be able to recognize and condemn “laissez faire” journalism.
President Donald Trump has recognizably taken a strong stance against the
mainstream media for their spread of what he claims to be fake news targeting
him. He even banned certain news outlets such as the BCC, NYT and Politico from
entering a Whitehouse press briefing in late February. I do believe that such
media outlets have sometimes presented inaccurate information regarding the
2016 presidential election and President Donald Trump.
With that being said, I
do not support the fact that these news outlets were not allowed to enter the
press briefing, as I believe it is a breach of government transparency. As
Edward Snowden stated in an interview in early December, “the answer to bad
speech is not censorship.” Instead, I echo the same sentiment expressed by
Edward Snowden that, we as consumers of the media, must be able to think
critically and “help each other. . . point out what is fake.”
