During Donald Trump’s run for the presidency the mainstream media made many attempts to make the American people see Trump as every negative adjective you can think of. Sexist, racist, xenophobic, trans-phobic, homophobic, and just about any other kind of phobia you can find in the dictionary. Now do some of these labels hold some merit? Some of them do, of course. Trump is far from Mother Theresa, but it was also clear how harshly they covered him on some less important points. The media’s blatantly ignoring many of the flaws of Hillary Clinton, while playing up those of Donald Trump showed the incredible bias that is inherit in some news organizations.
For example, according to data from newsbusters.com, ABC, NBC, and CBS spent 4 hours and thirteen minutes on Trump’s sexual assault allegations, and only 36 minutes dedicated to Hillary’s WikiLeaks scandal. According to the Washington Times these WikiLeaks included Hillary calling for open borders, Clinton saying sometimes she has a public and private opinion, Hillary mocking Catholics, and much more. Clearly very important issues that should have warranted equal coverage.
I believe that if a person wants to run for office they should be held to the highest standard. If they have flaws, the American people should know about all of them. Of course Trump being accused of sexual assault is disgusting, and he was heavily criticized for it as he should have been. However, I do wish the media would have given the same kind of criticism to Hillary, because people should know everything about each candidate. They very clearly did not receive equal coverage.
Stop me if you have heard this before, but it has been a long held belief by conservatives that the mainstream media labels a Republican candidate with a slew of phobics to paint him as an awful person, while they seem to put the Democratic candidate on a pedestal or report less harshly. I believe this has merit. In the 2012 election, nymag.com and salon.com were quick to call Mitt Romney a racist for his welfare comments. And in 2008, alternet.com and nymag.com called McCain a racist for the way he spoke to Obama. I also remember when vox.com called Rubio “Worse than Trump”, and The Washington Post called Cruz more dangerous than Trump. Do you?
So during this latest election cycle, the media did the same exact thing as it did in the last two elections. Why would anyone give the media credibility when it’s doing the same dishonest and biased routine it has always been doing? It seems to me that the Republican Party could have Jesus Christ as their nominee, and Salon.com will publish an article titled “Does Jesus Being the Son of God Make Him Out of Touch with The Middle Class?”
Political commentator and television host Bill Maher, famous for ungodly smugness and pretending he is smart, actually made an interesting point on his late night show a couple of days before the election. He explained that the liberal media cried wolf at Bush and Romney. He went on to say that this time it is different, and if we elect “Fascist” Trump he will change our way of life and laid out valid points. Yawn, same old routine of unequal coverage. Let’s wait for 2020 or 2024 when the next Republican candidate is labeled as worse than Trump.
There is a significant portion of the country that has simply lost their trust in the mainstream media due to unfair representation, and this undoubtedly contributed to Trump’s narrow victory. No matter how accurate and founded the medias criticisms of Trump may have been, they’re credibility has taken a punishing hit. According to a poll by Gallup.com only 32 percent of people have “a great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the mainstream media. I don’t know what the future holds for mainstream media outlets, but I do know that if the media doesn’t start showing a fair coverage to both political parties in the future, than they will soon lose the credibility that remains.
