2020 has been a year of burning questions, fake news, and severe conflict. What is true? What’s not? That’s been the question on everyone’s mind over the past few months. The way we get our news is through TV screens, print media, and social media, and it’s the normal way of life now. Headlines become our best friends and we take them as truth as soon as we read them, not even considering that there’s a chance we are being lied to. The phrase ‘fake news’ has become very popular over the last few years, and it’s said that the media is constantly lying to the average viewer. Is this the case? Does fake news actually exist? Is the media the enemy of the American people?
Over the course of 2020 so far, the news has been rampant and a lot of it has appeared to be either hypocritical, lies, or sometimes even a cover-up. According to many in the media such as The New York Times stated that President Trump’s travel ban to China was simply an emotional and political game for him, and not a way to stop the Coronavirus from spreading rapidly in the United States. Many criticized President Trump, stating he was too late in reacting to the Coronavirus or that it was violating our civil rights laws, but later on many went back on their complaints stating that perhaps the President’s move to ban travel to and from China might have saved many lives, including Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who called the travel ban a bad idea in late January. His Campaign Manager Kate Bedingfield told CNN, “Joe Biden supports travel bans that are guided by medical experts, advocated by public health officials, and backed by a full strategy. Science supports this ban, therefore he does too.”
The news has a way of twisting the narrative in many ways, especially in the form of fear-mongering. Many news outlets have been showing photos and videos from a hospital during the Coronavirus pandemic that were stated to be from New York but were later found out to be shot from Italy. It’s a shame that the media has to backtrack several times to back up their claims, and it’s a shame that they find it okay to lie to the viewer about said news story.
Even in the midst of a crisis, they can’t help themselves. Lies must be spread from claiming that President Trump called the virus a hoax to Dr. Anthony Fauci being muzzled, in which both cases are false. But the virus isn’t the only time the media has spread lies. It’s been apparent that this has been an ongoing problem for the past few years from Brett Kavanaugh’s trial back in 2018 to kids being locked in cages under the Trump Administration. There is a clear bias in the media and as every day passes by, this becomes a little more evident.
This causes many viewers to not believe what the media tells them, even if what they are saying is actually true and honest According to a recent Gallup poll, the majority of Americans have lost trust in the media, taking it down to a low of 41%. Also, according to a Pew Study, 61% of Americans say that the media ignores important stories. Not to mention, the media has ranked worst in their reporting and trust during the Coronavirus outbreak according to a Gallup Poll taken in March. Why is this? Perhaps it’s the biased perceptions of most media sources who are very reliant on political affiliation, or maybe it’s because most news sources these days throw a story together and they see what sticks before citing sources or fact-checking. The bias is extreme, and the rewriting of headlines has become more common than ever before. The American people are noticing this more and more every day. The media picks and chooses what to air, especially when it comes to important press briefings from the White House. It is clear the bias, constant rewriting of headlines and lack of airing important things because it doesn’t fit the narrative is proof enough that the media is becoming the enemy of the people, and a danger to America, especially during a global pandemic.
