Republicans and “Fake News”
Trust in the media is rapidly decreasing. A recent Gallup poll suggests that only 13% of our population trust the media a “great deal” and 28% of the US population trusts the media just “a fair amount.” This is not surprising, and the numbers continued to fall all throughout the Trump presidency and even to the beginnings of the Biden presidency. However, the political divide within trust in the media is what is troubling. That same poll also suggests that 69% of Democrats trusted the media while only 15% of Republicans trusted the media. This mass gap between the parties can only be explained starting all the way in the beginning of Obama’s second term.
Obama’s Presidency
More or less, Barack Obama’s 8 year term was uneventful. Major events could include, for example, Obamacare or the capturing of Osama Bin Laden. However, it seems that it is exceedingly difficult to find a single article that would otherwise “degrade” ex-president Obama. The only news platforms that criticized Obama’s actions were, of course, openly conservative networks. Very prominent news outlets are all left-leaning including, but not limited to, CNN, MSNBC, Daily Beast, Jacobin, Vox, The New York Times, and NBC. Among these sites, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, and The New York Times, three of them are the top 10 newspapers while the other seven have liberal and left-wing leanings. Of these top-ten, only the NY post is considered to be right wing. All subsequent outlets played a major part in “green-lighting” much of ex-president Obama’s activity. One could even say that these outlets brought Obama to victory in his 2004 campaign against Mitt Romney. While the media had nothing but good things to say about President Obama, other outlets were busy writing articles about how Mitt Romney straps dogs to the top of his car, and is a womanizer because of the “Binders full of Women Case.” Of course none of these cases were actually true, but the damage was already done.
Bias on the Republican Side of the Aisle
The same went for the right-wing. This division was so large, that any Republican thought that there was no way Romney would lose, and any Democrat thought that there was no way Obama would lose. At the end, all the American citizens got were political facts garnished in their language and embellished in their content. Or go a little bit further to 2013, when the IRS was under fire for their scrutinization of Conservative groups such as the Tea Party. It was discovered that a majority of Romney’s major backers during his campaign were hit with audits, and the IRS had been pressuring groups such as the Tea Party. As a result, many of Romney’s backers were forced to retreat. Now this bit of news came out a whole year after Obama’s presidency ENDED. The only thing that the American people heard about the scandal were from conservative news outlets. Furthermore, Obama claimed to be “outraged” even though his administration was found out to have ordered the IRS. Although this essay is meant to be as unbiased as possible, there is not a single instance of major news outlets green lighting or covering for conservative political malpractice. Even when the Democrats are proven to have done something wrong, the headline just changes to “Republicans are pouncing.” With the media so indignant in their left-wing bias, it is no wonder that more Democrats trust the media than conservatives do.
