Political Media Hype
Why Have an Opinion When you Have Network T.V.
It is the responsiblity of the media to decide what is newsworthy. But are we being informed on the issue at hand or are being told what to think?
As America enters in to one of the most interesting elections in history, there seems to be a guiding force bringing the American people their thoughts. That is of course media hype.
It’s hard to resist being pulled in to the brigade of stories that surround certain people. But as we know, the media has a skewed idea of what should be deemed important. For example, are Brittney’s shortcomings more important then world affairs? Some may think so after watching an hour of major network news. So why wouldn’t the same theory apply to the election stories that have been generated?
It began with the polarized amounts of media coverage that were given to John Edwards versus that of Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama. It understandable to a certain extent considering Clinton is the first viable female candidate for President of the United States and Obama is the first African American man to be steps away from being the leader of the free world. However the immense amount of attention received is not founded solely on merit and notability rather on what stories will generate the most attention. This leaves Edwards looking as though he lacks merit and notability, while there’s nothing further from the truth.
As the hard working lower middle class has taken tough hits in the last eight years, attention should be given to the man who has bright ideas to end our poverty dilemmas. The candidate who feels the urgency to accomplish the laundry list of problems that our country is facing, and the man who has been devoted to bringing health care to all those who are without. Unfortunately these ambitions of Edwards were overshadowed by the excitingly diverse election that lies before the American people.
The winner of this Presidential election will most likely achieve the victory because they were the favorite and received the adequate amount of votes from the electoral college, as is the case for most elections, (not all but most.) There is however the question of whether they are the right candidate, clearly the American people have managed to elect some who were less then qualified. Just imagine where America would be if Al Gore had been elected, Iraq wouldn't have happened, and global warming would be something of the past.
So now the question is how many of those votes of this election and previous ones were shaped by the amount of coverage a candidate received through the media rather than their actual promise or ability?
