Political Biases in the Media & the 2016 US Presidential Election

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.”