American Media and Politics

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…” Since the birth of our country, the media has played an important role in our lives, with newspaper, radio, TV, and the internet. From pop culture to politics, the media covers all walks of life. As a democratic society, the media serves as part of our political foundation. Our founding fathers recognized it as an essential importance to our country and its democracy. The media also tells a story about the American people. Despite the many criticisms of the media, it serves as a key to our American identity as well as provides an important foundation in our political establishment.

The media holds an important role in our country and the political system we, as a people, have come to love. Without the media, we would not be a democracy. It provides us Americans with the transparency and accountability that is needed to keep our leaders in check. Because of our elaborate media, our population is knowledgeable when it comes to our politicians and the issues facing our country; a privilege that many around the globe don’t get the opportunity to experience. It creates a forum for political discussion and education, as well as a place where our politicians can get the feedback they need in order to lead our country into prosperity. Yet the media does pose a problem in our lives. The media uses their power to try to promote their ideology, they choose the issues we read about, and they can limit the discussion. They also hold the power to veto our candidates. (Weisbrot) Hillary Clinton in the 2008 election is a good example; she was a qualified candidate who connected with the Democrat base. Yet when the media was not ignoring her, they constantly ran negative stories about her, a key reason in her loss of the Democrat primary elections. With the power that they media holds, they sometimes scare our leaders; they distort what the politicians say. Even with these drawbacks, the media is an overall positive aspect of our society; without it, we would not be a democracy.

As much as we would hope to have an unbiased media outlet, the fact of the matter is that none exist. Our media of today seems to tilt to the left; in the 2004 election, 52% of journalists supported John Kerry, while only 19% supported George Bush. (Media Research Center) Only about 6% of journalists claim to be conservatives and liberal journalists outnumber them by 5:1. (Media Research Center) And, unfortunately, this translates into their coverage of our political system. People have to go to multiple outlets to find an accurate reporting, and in today’s world, that is very difficult. Most people can only go to one source, falling into the ideological trap. The media finds any way to show their opinion; even distorting the view of the American people. For example, during the Tea Party protests, Fox News ran multiple positive stories over-estimating attendance numbers, while MSNBC ran negative stories and tried to downside the attendance. This bias coverage leads people to gravitate towards their own opinion; conservatives watch Fox and liberals watch MSNBC (of course many watch other programs as well). We as Americans have a “selective awareness”; we tend to see what we want to see. (Wilcox) We try not to step outside of our boundaries, especially our political boundaries. As a country we also don’t want to find out that our ways are wrong or that sometimes there are better ways of doing things. We go to the side we support and we only follow them; those left behind, the “undecided” crowd, tend to fall through the cracks. This translates into an effect on our political process.

Despite what we want to believe when it comes to election results, the media is hard to blame. In 1972, 30% of people did not trust the media, now, around 56% of people don’t. (Polling Report) As the political climate grows more intense, the media becomes more ideological and less trustworthy. Since the news is everywhere, the internet especially, the media has to turn to objective news reporting in order to compete; and we as Americans love objectivity. Objectivity excites us, it creates controversy, we are attracted to this objectivity. Yet with this objectivity comes falsehood; since many Americans stick to one media outlet, when they report false information, the viewer is the one to suffer. As much as we like to claim the media holds a big role in influencing the vote, they tend to only reaffirm who will be voted for. With the addition of conservative Fox News in 1996, the increase in Republican votes was only ½ % increased in the 2000 election. (Duflo) A 2005 study showed the effects of voters who read biased newspapers and those who read none at all, they were minimal. Most of the voters swayed to the left, despite ¼ of the participants receiving conservative newspapers. Yet those who did receive newspapers were more likely to show up to vote. (Duflo) It is hard to sway American ideology; we like the opinion the we see and hear, yet we tend to overlook it when we make our decisions. We leave the decision making to ourselves, something that is part of a central democratic theme.

Not surprisingly, the American public tends to look unfavorably on the media. 70% of Americans find that the media is simply out of touch with the American people. (Polling Report) They don’t care about connecting with the struggles and strife of the average American, they only want to create controversy and, more importantly, profit. In fact, the people recognize the political bias; 45% of people claim the media is slanted left while only 15% believe it is slanted to the right. (Polling Report) Americans are not stupid people; they recognize the problems with our media, yet they don’t seem to really mind it. Despite our ever growing technological world, people tend to get most of their information the old fashioned way, through TV. Even with the amount of media outlets growing everyday, less people watch the news on a consistent basis than those in years before. Perhaps because only 50% of people say the media is a truly positive aspect of our society. (Polling report) Our media’s credibility had declined over the years as they have become simply less fair and balanced. (Ernst) Even though we like objectivity and controversy, we tend to look down on the organizations who try to influence our beliefs. We don’t like how the media blatantly distorts facts to sway our opinion; our opinion is our own, we are against those who force theirs upon ours. The media has shifted over the years to an establishment based on profit margins like the majority of our country, but when that philosophy is applied to politics, we reject it. Thankfully, despite the constant criticism of our media, 80% of people feel that the media must stay. (Polling Report) They recognize how a even bad media is needed in a political system that is dependent upon it.

The democracy that our country has come to know and love has its foundation in our media. It is an important tool in our society, almost a fourth branch of our government. With it comes transparency, accountability, discussion, education, and freedom. Although our media has grown over the years into what we see as an destructive establishment, without it, we are nothing. We as Americans recognize the problems of our media today, and what comes as a surprise to many people, it doesn’t influence our ideology, it brings about information to prove or disprove our beliefs, it brings about greater voter turnout, and brings about greater democracy. We tend to see what we want to see, hear what we want to hear. Our values and ideologies remain strong, uninfluenced by our ever growing commercial media. There is a reason why the founding fathers included freedom of the press in our constitution. A democracy cannot survive without an establishment that is used to keep it in check; democracy without a media is a dictatorship. Simply put, “where it up to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter,” Thomas Jefferson.