The article this post stems from is an opinion piece by a New York Times journalist who covers women’s rights, human rights, health and global affairs. Clearly, he is a democrat. This being said, his point is extremely valid regardless of what party he affiliates himself with: the media has a responsibility not to portray candidates within a shallow narrative, as they consistently and frustratingly do. (Billionaire businessman Mark Cuban has recently spoken out about this as well.) Not only is this not fair to the candidates, but it isn’t fair to the audience, the population, who trust journalists and the media to give them a full picture of what is going on in an election cycle.
The media has a responsibility not to portray candidates within a shallow narrative, as they consistently and frustratingly do.
All of that being said, the title of the article is: “When a Crackpot Runs for President.” But, I mean, he has a point.
Here is an excerpt:
On the PolitiFact website, 13 percent of Clinton’s statements that were checked were rated “false” or “pants on fire,” compared with 53 percent of Trump’s. Conversely, half of Clinton’s are rated “true” or “mostly true” compared to 15 percent of Trump statements.
Clearly, Clinton shades the truth — yet there’s no comparison with Trump.
I’m not sure that journalism bears responsibility, but this does raise the thorny issue of false equivalence, which has been hotly debated among journalists this campaign. Here’s the question: Is it journalistic malpractice to quote each side and leave it to readers to reach their own conclusions, even if one side seems to fabricate facts or make ludicrous comments?
President Obama weighed in this week, saying that “we can’t afford to act as if there’s some equivalence here.”
Read the full article by Nicholas Kristof published in The New York Times Opinion Pages on Sept. 15 2016, here.
Feature image via Newsday.com
