The only way I can rationalize the outcome of the 2016 presidential election is with the phrase, “All publicity is good publicity.” This saying is one our new President-elect Donald Trump knows all too well.
When Trump first ever announced his run for presidency in late 2015, the media did not give him much special treatment. A businessman-turned-reality-television-star aiming to lead the country was certainly a newsworthy moment, yet the overall approach to Trump’s running was initially treated with humor or doubt.
That changed after the first Republican Party primary debate, when he came out on top as the clear “winner” despite his derogatory utterances toward women. The next day, when he tweeted Megyn Kelly and called her unprofessional for catalyzing the discussion of misogyny, the amount of headline possibilities with his controversies seemed endless and a great idea for clickbait.
His political remarks got darker and more controversial. Liberal media outlets saw an opportunity to discredit him by consistently reporting and then analyzing his legion of vehement statements, whether they were from Twitter or his campaign speeches. This led to a blurred line between news and opinion.
Reputable outlets such as the New York Times admitted to this. Media columnist Jim Rutenberg said about reporting on Trump, “… you have to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the past half-century, if not longer, and approach it in a way you’ve never approached anything in your career.”
While the media has the power to put a politically charged opinion in a headline and pass it off as news, they cannot control the subjective reaction their audience members will have as they read it.
What occurred was free promotion for Trump, rather than his ousting. While he is already known as a world-famous billionaire, outlets constantly alluding to him made him the most well-known man in the United States.
A quick Google trend search reveals that Donald Trump was, on average, searched by people twice as many times as Hillary Clinton for most of 2016. Yet, Clinton spent nearly twice the amount of money on her campaign than Trump did on his.
This thought that media bias is getting out of hand and in fact aiding Donald Trump’s momentum first came to me after I read an article by the Huffington Post over the summer. I saw an editor’s note calling Trump a “bully,” “xenophobe” and “serial liar.” This disavowal was on every article that focused on Trump.
While I don’t disagree with the sentiment behind Huffington Post’s note about Trump, I do think that this disclaimer does not belong in any form of journalism other than opinion writing. People reading that disclaimer who do not necessarily agree with it had all the more incentive to make their vote for Trump and prove their political unity.
News acts to inform readers on domestic and international situations, not to persuade them to think on one side of the coin rather than the other. It is supposed to put a dialogue out there rather than moderate that discussion into the direction they see fit.
If news headlines are all about demonizing a certain person rather than informing them on what was said by them, a discussion where people stubbornly stick to one of only two sides is created. And now, in part due to this media bias, we will have four years of a polarized, never-ending debate.
Haralambos Kasapidis is a senior majoring in English.