American representative democracy is founded upon the idea that an educated populace is capable of gathering information about candidates running for office. The most popular source of information for modern Americans is the mainstream media, which are categorized on a scale that asks how liberal or conservative it portrays their views. The problem that occurs in this system is that when we use the word “conservative,” we really mean how much it represents Republican ideals and when we use the word “liberal,” we really mean how it represents Democratic ideals. Thus, we have media that are based on of a dichotomy between the Republican and Democratic parties. Through the power that portraying information to the general public offers, they advocate their information through the lens of what a certain party proclaims and serve their own ideologies. They seek to distort viewers’ views rather than liberate them through information.
Whenever information is presented, we can expect a bias. However, the popular media’s biases have become blatantly purposeful. They now intentionally seek to control public perception of GOP candidates. An obvious victim of media bias is Ron Paul. Last week a CNBC took a poll off their website that showed Ron Paul winning. Early on in the race, Ron Paul was competitive in almost every poll, but the media excluded him from their front-runners, despite his success in the polls. In the recent CBS debate, Ron Paul was only given 89 seconds of speaking time. Another example is found in a clip on CNN news where a reporter is covering Ron Paul’s presence at an event, but is told by the CNN anchor, “If you get a video of Sarah Palin or get a sound bite from her, you can bring that back to us. You can hold the Ron Paul stuff.”
Ron Paul is not the only candidate to be given a raw deal by the media. According to World Net Daily, an email leak between CBS’s political director and a correspondent advised that Rep. Michele Bachman not receive many questions. The leaked memo was posted on her Facebook page by her campaign manager and serves as a testimony of the media’s intentional desire to shut certain candidates’ opinions down. The worst part is that these are only a handfull of examples of blatant media bias.
The sad reality is that a major part of our political system is grossly biased and shuts down certain people due to their political ideologies. An even sadder reality is that many voters limit their understanding of the world to a very narrow selection of popular media. The media will not rely so much on changing your view of the world as much as they will attempt to make it appear that only certain candidates have a chance at winning. So when you listen to the media and see how they have displayed candidates like Paul or Bachmann, you too may decide that such candidates must not have a probable chance at winning. So what do you do at this point? You want your vote to count, so you back a candidate seen as electable.
When a mass of people buys into this same way of thinking, it empowers media bias. As a voter, you must vote on principle, not electability, especially when you don’t like any of the winning candidates. The message is simple: Don’t let the media steal your vote, even if it takes the votes of others. Vote for what you believe in and your vote will be legitimate. This involves doing your homework by reading a variety of news sources. Do so, and in the end, you will have voted upon principle, not compromise.
