Dueling outlets with conflicting agendas

By: helen, jordan, dani, and rasmus

Helen: What a crazy news cycle! This truly has never been like anything seen before.

Jordan: I agree, Helen. I don’t think our democracy has ever endured something this outlandish before.

Dani: Totally. The media is influencing people’s political opinions now more than ever, and the issue of false information is one they’re struggling to regulate.

Jordan: I agree, Dani, false information has definitely plagued this entire election. It’s interesting to me how primarily Democratic sources tended to frame this election in the scope of Trump’s obscene lawsuits against multiple states. These claims are seemingly fact-free, and I’m curious as to how far he is even going to get with this. If anything, I think it’s an embarrassment on the behalf of his entire campaign. I think that every time we see a news source that is left-leaning doing coverage on his suits, the most recurring theme is to show how baseless his suits are and how his campaign is grasping for whatever remnants of hope they can. They are hoping for a "hail Mary" as one might say. However, I have noticed that even left-leaning sources refrain from ensuring viewers that Biden’s elected presidency is completely safe and will remain valid. I think that speaks to the radical nature of the Trump campaign and how badly this could potentially go. I noticed that some right leaning-sources have been painting Trump as a victim, while others have actually not covered much about his suits, perhaps because they recognize how baseless his claims are. I’m curious about whether you all have any input on what parts of the election were covered most closely, and which were ignored?

Helen: I completely agree, Jordan. The focuses of each outlet are definitely worth noting. They both shape and reflect public opinion.

Dani: I’ve been thinking about that a lot, and it’s really interesting. Between right and left side sources, the topics covered attacked different aspects in character of the presidential candidates as they covered relatively similar topics concerning the last few states that needed to be counted to determine the next president, and examining each candidates approach toward winning. While the left focused greatly on Trump’s harmful rhetoric and spread of false information, the right tended to attempted to frame his claims as empowering factors for his supporters to have hope in. However, both sides fundamentally focused on each candidate's present reactions as the elections came to a close and evaluated the possible implications of Trump or Biden winning as voter turn-out revealed more and more about the political preferences of Americans. While there is a clear opposition and polarization between the two parties, there is a centralization of topics the media outlets chose to cover around certain state predictions. As the election came closer to an end, media coverage strayed from discussing specific policies of each candidate and important topics throughout the campaign such as racial inequality and climate change and tended to focus on the present actions of each campaign member under the pressure of election turn-out. As broad ideas were covered among different sources, which sources do you guys think emphasized which topics?

Rasmus: Really nice point, Daniela.

Helen: I agree. The right-leaning sources definitely put an emphasis on alleged voter fraud. The Federalist’s articles claimed Republicans were being routinely silenced by major media outlets, and therefore when media outlets declared a Biden victory, the pattern only continued. Although Fox News, a notoriously right-leaning source, declared the Biden victory at the same time as other, more liberal outlets, the Federalist still felt that Republicans were being silenced by “major media.” The Federalist argued that the media was highlighting certain stories, like Biden wins in battleground states, in order to try and paint a picture of a Trump decimation by Biden. The Washington Times’ article essentially echoed the Federalist, but focused more on identifying examples of voting irregularities rather than the media’s alleged oppression of the Right. It is clear that the Republican party’s news outlets are trying to report a Trump victory into existence. The New York Times, on the other hand, focused on debunking alleged voter fraud and thus using facts to decimate the Right’s many false allegations of foul play. I find that, therefore, many media outlets put political posturing ahead of facts and journalistic integrity. What do you guys think, though? How well do you believe the media covered the 2020 election?

Jordan: That makes a lot of sense. That echoes my findings.

Helen: For sure, I think we’re both hitting on something very important.

Dani: I agree, I think the topics each sources chose to cover revealed a lot about different demographics of the American population, and provide a new insight onto both Biden and Trump supporters as they received all their information through their right or left leaning media outlets. Overall, though, how well do we think the media handed election coverage?

Rasmus: That’s hard to say, but I think that the election’s media coverage was grounded in bias and preemptive undermining of the opposing side’s validity. In the media outlets we covered, we see that many of them directly tried to undermine election results and validity of vote counts to prepare a narrative to contest election results. More importantly, we noticed that media outlets weren’t afraid to be partisan and presented a consistent narrative for their audience. Outlets like the Federalist were unapologetically claiming voter fraud and setting up a Trump win. In contrast, outlets like the New York Times, at every point in the election, used hopeful rhetoric around a Biden victory that would appeal to their majority left leaning audience. Overall, in the context of an election that is pivotal in deciding the extent of polarization in American politics, media outlets were biased in reporting the election’s trajectory.

Jordan: I agree, Rasmus. I think that the media also plays a huge role in how people vote and their political identities, which shouldn’t necessarily be the case.