Bias in Media Election Coverage

By Marcus Enriquez, Staff Reporter

PATRICK SEMANSKY/USA Today

The media has continuously supported one aspect of a story when it comes to politics while ignoring the other. During this year's presidential election, the media seems to be ¨shining a light on¨ just one of the two candidates. During the presidential debate on Tuesday, Sept. 29 in Cleveland, OH, news outlets like CNN were unfairly biased towards former Vice President Joe Biden and negatively biased towards President Donald Trump.

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past four years, you would know that many people are divided about their opinions on Trump. The media is allowed to criticize the president for his actions, but some of the things he's criticized for are far fetched. During Trump's first term, several news outlets reported the negative and positive results of his words and actions, but during this election cycle the news seems to be using anything big or small against him.

This coverage mainly started when Biden was declared the Democratic Presidential Nominee and has become increasingly unfairly biased.

Several claims came out about Trump being homophobic and anti-LGBTQ+. Even though Trump has said he supports the LGBTQ+ people of America, he is labeled a homophobe. Unlike Biden who has said that he believes that marriage is the union between a man and a woman and he doesn’t support redefining what marriage is.

“We already have a law, the Defense of Marriage Act,” Biden said. “We’ve all voted — not, where I’ve voted, and others have said, look, marriage is between a man and a woman and states must respect that. Nobody’s violated that law, there’s been no challenge to that law. Why do we need a constitutional amendment? Marriage is between a man and a woman.”

Biden said this during an interview on ¨Meet the Press¨ in 2006, but he isn't being called a homophobe. Biden may have changed his views and opinion on gay marriage, but it doesn't make sense why people don´t give Trump that same treatment.

It simply feels unfair that Trump is getting most of the criticism, and some of the criticism honestly feels like the news outlets are grabbing at anything they can to sully his name.

CNN released a news story on Apr. 4, 2017 titled, “Everyone should have a shot at paid family leave.” Trump added this very idea to his budget shortly after the article was published. However, CNN then released an opinions article a month later titled, “How paid family leave hurts women.” It seems as though CNN wanted someone else to implement paid family leave and, after Trump did, they used it to make him look like a misogynistic sexist to get women not to like him.

Yahoo tried to sully the Trump name by attacking his wife for wearing a pair of Timberland boots on Dec. 26, 2018 in an article titled, “Melania Trump mocked for wearing Timberland boots.”

“This is not a modeling show,” Yahoo journalist Kerry Justich said in the article.

Recently, however, Yahoo released an article on Sep. 16, 2020 -- titled “Kamala Harris may have made the timberland boots cool again” -- about how Kamala Harris wore Timberland boots while out campaigning and might have made them "relevant again."

"This honestly feels like nepotism," senior Nick Zamorano said. "It feels like Trump is the illegitimate son and Biden is the son they always wanted, but never had."

The attacks that Trump gets from the media can be seen as justifiable or biased, but that's for you to decide. The media may be biased, but that doesn't mean you have to be.