What ever happened to a campaign based on integrity? This question reverberated during the election cycles of the nineteenth and twentieth century, and is once again being posed today.
The Presidential Campaign leading up to the primary was nothing short of newsworthy. The feature stories of major news corporations such as CNN, FOX, and MSNBC detailed one attack after another between top Democratic contenders Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama. The Republicans shared the same limelight when Senator John McCain attacked his chief opponent Mitt Romney on the terms that Romney had supported a "timetable" for the Iraq War. Thankfully, the media was quick to identify that McCain's words were inconclusive and misguided.
Unfortunately, when it comes to American politics, it seems as if integrity has been shoved aside and instead, candidates adopt a "do or die" policy. In other words, they will do anything, even provoke controversies, to insure that they lead the polls. The media seems to have followed in this mindset, which has ultimately affected the tone of the media's election coverage.
For those registered voters who find it hard to make time for researching the candidates to make a justifiable decision on who to support for the next President of the United States, or even for those who could care less until the day before Election Day, the media is their means of making the decision on which candidate they will support. Instead of the media taking their responsibility as an influence to hundreds of thousands of voters seriously, they have and continue to deliver biased and manipulative coverage of the elections in favor of certain candidates, which in turn sways the election's results in the way of the candidates covered more frequently or given more positive remarks rather than negative.
According to Keith Higginbotham, a 21-year-old Communications major at South Campus, "[the] election seems it's about media coverage. It's not about the best candidate." Instead of providing an objective view on the candidates to help voters in their decision process, the media chooses to use those stories with "shock value... one's that will get everyone's attention."
Truly, the Presidential Campaign leading to Super Tuesday was a landmark in American political history. For the first time, Democrats found a woman as well as an African American as the party's major aspirants for the White House. Understandably, the media would want to report such milestones in political history.
At the same time, however, many news stations disregarded another major Democratic Candidate, John Edwards by giving Clinton and Obama significant more air time. Higginbotham added that "John Edwards was big, but he was against Hilary and Obama, two candidates that are different that were rallying up sectors of voters that have never bothered to enter the voting precincts."
The New York Times reported a chart [1] which detailed the minutes given to candidates during the 2007 debates, and not surprisingly, the major contenders found themselves at the top. On the Democratic ticket, Obama, Clinton, and John Edwards found themselves with debate time ranging from Edwards with 117 minutes to Obama with 149 minutes. Likewise, on the Republican ticket, Giuliani found himself with 106 minutes, Romney with 105 minutes, McCain with 92 minutes, and Huckabee with 73 minutes.
The top candidates predicted in the above numbers seemed to become even more distinguished during January and early February as the media continued to give and detract time from certain candidates. Never mind the Equal Time Rule, which according to the Museum of Broadcast Communications, requires "radio and television stations and cable systems which originate their own programming to treat legally qualified political candidates equally when it comes to selling or giving away air time" [2]. The media essentially endorses candidates by providing certain Presidential aspirants more air time than others.
The benefits of a candidate receiving more air time could be seen when the media allotted extensive coverage of McCain's Iraq attack on Romney. Regrettably, some Conservative Republicans in support of the war who did not hear the later criticism by national media of McCain's misguided attacks changed their vote from Romney to McCain, which helped shift the previous reported tie between McCain and Romney in favor of McCain. Alongside Governor Charlie Crist's late announcement of his endorsement of McCain, McCain ended up winning Florida by 96,680 votes. [3]
Romney, in his response to McCain's attacks, was asked if he would go after McCain's personal life. With one of the most admirable statements made by a Presidential candidate in terms of values so far in this race, Gov. Romney responded: "We disagree on a number of issues. I'll talk about those issue differences...but I'm not going be talking about personality matters." [4]
Recognizing the unfair advantages given to certain candidates in the media is key. In this way, Americans are able to decipher whether or not they are being fed truthful facts. Perhaps, this article will encourage Americans to research the Presidential nominees for themselves and hopefully, make a justifiable and solid decision based on support for policies or principles rather than a vulnerable decision from the limited media perspectives available.
[1]http://www.nytimes.com/2007 /12/28/opinion/28todd.html?n=T op/Reference/Times%20Topics/Pe ople/G/Gravel,%20Mike
[2] http://www.museum.tv/archives/ etv/E/htmlE/equaltimeru/equalt imeru.htm
[3] http://doe.dos.state.fl.us/ele ctions/resultsarchive/enight.a sp
[4] http://online.wsj.com/article/ SB120182560902833719.html?mod= special_page_campaign2008_topb ox
No comments:
Post a Comment