Politics and the Media: How the media manipulates politics

As history streams by, we’re all in a position to observe the two major forces that shape history today: politics and the media. To understand how politics is shaped by the media, we all need to understand just what the media is and how it has changed in the past few years. To do that, we need to recognize the difference between legitimate news sources, and what is only perceived to be “the media.”

We’re in the middle of a political campaign, even though the election is still 10 months away, and already, it is getting ugly out there. Never has the opportunity for spreading rumors and outright lies been so easy. But before we talk about today’s problems, it’s important to know about dirty tricks during the 2000 election that could have changed the course of history.

First of all, let me say that I have always registered when possible as an Independent because I’ve always believed in voting for the best person for president, no matter what their party: someone who is honest, who has led a life of integrity up until this moment in time, who basically shares the same values as I. I’ve voted both Republican and Democrat, depending on who was running for office, and a few times, I refused to cast a vote because I didn’t believe I should have to select between the lesser of two evils. Bad is bad, and that’s not a choice. However, in retrospect, I can see that sometimes lies and dirty tricks shape the image we voters have of the candidates, and can influence our choices. Sometimes we make serious mistakes because rival candidates and the media have influenced us. So how can voters today recognize the truth?

As I write about the way media shapes politics, I will use examples without names. That is simply because if I use the real names, some people will skim this article and pick out words or phrases as confirmation of the lies. I fear that simply repeating the rumor or lie could destroy a candidate if I also use his or her name. That isn’t my purpose. I only want to show you how your beliefs are being shaped and challenged without you even realizing that they are.

In the following story, only, I will tell how a real rumor that spread in the 2000 election took hold. I’m telling about it because it is relevant to some things that are already happening in 2008. I will refrain from using the candidate’s name because the rumor was a vicious lie that hurt some innocent people (including a young child), and possibly changed history.

A particular candidate was doing very well in caucuses and primaries until he reached South Carolina. Then suddenly, something called a “push poll” destroyed his chances in that State and other Southern states. The rumor made the candidate in question appear immoral, and it also fired up racists in that state and across the country.

At that time, a push poll asked a question about a candidate, and I’ll have to paraphrase here since I don’t remember the exact wording: Would you be more likely to vote for ***** ****** knowing he adopted a love child he had fathered in *********, or would you be less likely?

First of all, how would a person be supposed to honestly answer that? But you see, it wasn’t really a question that pollsters expected an answer to. The question was meant only to incite moral judgment about the candidate! The child was non-white and had been adopted by the candidate and his wife after his wife found her and another child in a third world country and was told they would die if they didn’t get medical help that wasn’t available there. So the candidate’s wife brought the children home to the United States for necessary medical care, then later she and the candidate adopted the little girl.

So a humane effort by a candidate and his wife was twisted into an ugly rumor that hurt their family and destroyed the candidate’s chances in the 2000 election. Not only that, but when the little girl got older, she Googled her adoptive dad’s name and discovered this nasty rumor still alive out there in cyberspace!

And that’s one of the dangers of the favorite source of information for today’s young people. Lies live on forever on the Web. How can lies and rumors get spread so viciously, so widely, and without challenge, you may be asking? Read on.

The Anatomy of a Lie
Political lies take root several ways, and for various reasons. They start with rabid enemies who will go to extremes to spread untrue stories, and then get spread through non-legitimate outlets (You Tube, My Space, blogs etc) and then re-circulated through television and radio stations that are owned by special interest groups or a single owner with an agenda. Often they then get picked up by the legitimate media because it is anxious to break the “news” first, even though it might not be true and has to be corrected later. And many in the legitimate media don’t ever bother to correct their mistakes! Excuses include: there’s too much news happening to take the time; people have forgotten anyway; let someone else do it.

Here’s a look at the many ways lies become news and we the public are manipulated:

Push Polls
The science of polling has grown exponentially in the past few years as more and more candidates and those already in public office have come to rely on them to reveal the pulse of the electorate. And so has the opportunity to use them for evil instead of the legitimate reasons they were first designed for. And so were born “Push Polls.”

The phrase “push poll” simply means a poll designed to push an emotional response rather than legitimately gauge the pulse of the electorate. Voters should realize that they are being “pushed” if a pollster calls asking a loaded question like: “Would you be more likely to vote for Candidate A if you knew he was a homosexual, or would you be less likely to vote for him?” The suggested “character flaw” can be about anything that will incite those who are prejudiced.

Push polls are a dangerous tool in the arsenal of political consultants and marketing companies that want to create a dangerous or dishonest picture of a particular candidate in the minds of electorate. Just imagine the number of people who won’t bother to further research the candidate through biographies and articles in legitimate (non-biased) magazines and newspapers, but will instead call everyone they know and say, “Did you know Candidate A is a homosexual? I just heard that. Oh no, it’s true or this guy (or woman) wouldn’t have said it!” And then when it is repeated over and over, suddenly it takes on a legitimacy even though it has no basis in truth. I personally know a woman who says (and believes), “They wouldn’t have said it on TV if it wasn’t true.”

Sometimes it’s hard to know when something is a rumor or not, but push polls are designed to start and spread rumors. Push Polls border on being illegal, but although authorities have their suspicions about who commissioned the push poll on the above candidate, they cannot prove it.

The Internet
Just last night, someone mentioned to me an incident concerning a current candidate for president that was seen on television, so she was sure it must be true. However, I remember when this particular story first made the news, then was later retracted when found to be untrue. How did it get traction? The Internet was the source!

The media for the under-35 voter today is the Internet, but most viewers of You Tube and various blog sites don’t realize that it may not be true because they "see it with their own eyes." Editing videos is one of the easiest things to do for those who have learned how to use sophisticated editing programs. They can cut and paste, and splice in pieces of tape until they design the message that they want you to see.

This type of editing has been done to audio tapes since the beginning, and now it’s used for videos. Those who watch them and believe everything in them are being manipulated by sometimes evil forces. Those forces count on these naive, honest, manipulated viewers to help spread what they believe is the “truth.” However, before the Internet or even television, history is full of evil people like Hitler and Stalin who manipulated entire populations of people, including convincing innocent people to help spread their evil messages. Not everyone is honest—no matter how much we wish they were.

The horror of these erroneous tapes today is that often the so-called legitimate media picks them up and runs them on their news programs. How does this happen? I honestly don’t know. There was a time when the media could be depended upon to only present news that could be verified, but in today’s “hurry-up” world, they often sacrifice integrity so their news source can be the first to report something. There’s no attempt to verify it first.

I can’t tell you how horrified I was when I realized a major news station was getting some of its “news” from popular blogs. They present these clips and credit the blog where it originated—never mind that there’s no way of quickly verifying the truthfulness of the information.

Here is a clue about whether a news piece is factual or not: if it doesn’t come from the pen or mouth of a legitimate journalist who has gathered and verified the news, then had an editor check the sources, IT IS NOT NEWS. It might be opinion, or personal thoughts, or an idealistic editorial, or downright slander, but IT IS NOT NEWS!

The Media
Time was when there were three major sources of news in the United States: NBC, ABC, and CBS. Then the media grew and the Internet created a world-wide outlet for information. When that happened, we all believed that we would have more choices. However, that’s not how things have turned out. Today, we have CNN and FOX plus the public stations like PBS and LINK, and various other media outlets. The only thing is, aside from the public broadcasting stations that have to answer to those who donate funds so they can stay on the air, these other new media sources are mostly owned or influenced by a single owner or a like-minded special interest group with an agenda.

So where can you get news that you can trust today? For the most part that is still: NBC, ABC, and CBS—not that they all always get it right. Unless a broadcasting company is answerable to shareholders that reflect a broad cross-section of citizens, or it is public and must present a wide-range of opinions that reflect its public mandate, then it will only reflect the single-owner or special interest agenda. That means that we cannot expect to receive verified news from trained, legitimate journalists if we only watch one of these self-serving broadcasting stations. It is easy to determine whether they are legitimate or not by briefly watching their shows. Do their stories seem to favor only one candidate or political party while ridiculing the other(s)? Do the on-air personalities take on a preachy tone or joke about the news stories they are presenting? Do most of their stories tend to be sensational, almost unbelievable? Any of the above are red flags that should signal that their news is neither honest, balanced, or legitimate.

Another problem is that media is being purchased and controlled at an alarming rate by a few media giants. While almost all radio stations and newspapers were once independently owned and reflected the communities they served, now almost all radio stations and newspapers throughout the country are owned or controlled by only a few people. You can travel from New York City to San Diego, and from Seattle to Miami, and hear the same newscasts and read the same stories in almost every newspaper. If that doesn’t scare you, it should. The fewer media outlets that serve the people, the less free is our press.

Free press was a right guaranteed in the Constitution, but the fewer news sources the public has access to means that we’re all receiving only the news that a media conglomerate deems important. The editorial slant of one or a few media giants is all we receive. And since media giants are “big business,” editorial opinions that favor big business are the only views we will get. Democracy cannot be guaranteed unless all viewpoints of all citizens are represented, young and old, rich and poor.

What binds Americans?
I have a theory that few Americans among us are truly politically far right- or left-wing, but instead reside comfortably in the middle. I believe that we each have mostly either conservative or liberal tendencies, but sometimes side with the opposite wing on certain issues. We are all so different, yet we are still basically the same because we’ve been brought up in a free society—in a country that values differences of opinion and honest, open dialogue about those differences.

Yet if our media continues to consolidate, it will more and more compromise our beliefs and choices. We could all be manipulated into thinking alike, the ideal situation for a dictatorship to take root and flourish. Eventually, we would see fewer choices. When that happens, this will no longer be a free nation—a democracy that is a shining example to the rest of the world.

Democracy will disappear as truth dissolves into lies that manipulate us to hate those who are different; to ignore the rights of those who think differently. And this very moment, the forces of today’s media are shaping our political choices.

We must all be alert to the changes in the way we receive our news, and we must learn how to separate the truth from a rumor or lie. I personally pledge to refuse to be blindly manipulated by rumors or lies that have been shaped and spread by push polls, the Internet, or the media. We all have a duty to search out every source of information on each candidate running for president so that we can discover and understand the real story behind every rumor. It’s imperative to our very survival! Our future as a democracy depends on it!


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