Mass Media vs. Politicians

For most of this semester, my Mass Media and Politics class have been talking about how politicians rely on the media just as much as the media rely on politicians. A question I often ask myself is which of these two actually has more power? I believe the answer to this is the mass media. With the advancement in technology, more and more people have immediate access to the latest information available. With social media and cell phones, more young people are involved and voicing their opinions about politics more than ever. Thus being said, I believe the media has far more power compared to politicians. It is transparent that the majority of Americans simply watch the nightly news and take things as fact. These people typically work 9-5 jobs, and they do not really have much extra time to do their own research on every matter. So what happens? News corporations such as CNN or Fox News tells them what and how they should think about a situation, and that is exactly how most people form their opinions. 

While I do believe the media can be good for a politician and his career, I am going to focus on how they can destroy a career simply by putting a politician in a negative spotlight. The first person I am going to focus on is Herman Cain. Cain was a candidate for the Republican Party presidential nomination in the 2012 election. He was actually, at one point, the frontrunner in the race. At some point during the race, the media published a story about a Herman Cain sex scandal while he was working for the NRA. What first bothers me about this is that the media was focusing on this story, and they were not focusing on the policies of the candidates. How is America supposed to advance to prosperity if the people do not know what they are voting for? Once people started hearing endless conversation of the Cain sex scandal, he had no choice but to drop out of the race. The media decided his fate for him. The next thing that bothers me about this story is how it lacked an enormous amount of credibility. More can be read here: http://www.businessinsider.com/unanswered-questions-herman-cain-sexual-harassment-accusations-2011-11 . Whether or not Cain actually did sexually harass someone, the media did not have tangible proof of it and should not have published this story. They should have focused more on his policies, such as his 9-9-9 plan. ABC posted a video of the situation, and they appear to manipulate the story by suggesting he did in fact do something and was lying. Look at it here and form your own opinion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw-TBtI7GAk.

It is humorous to think about how politicians today cannot get away with smoking a cigarette without everyone knowing about it, and looking at what politicians used to do 40+ years ago and what they got away with. This website shows a few politicians that would have been ripped apart by the modern media: http://www.cracked.com/funny-4520-great-leaders-who-would-have-been-destroyed-by-modern-media.

Another recent example that comes to mind is Todd Akin. This situation, unlike Cain's, had legitimacy and proof. Akin was quoted saying: “It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” The media had a field day with this. Romney, Obama, and many other high ranked politicians condemned Akin for saying this, and they asked Akin to drop out of the Missouri Senate race. Akin refused and said he was going to continue with the election, and he predicted that he would win. He lost. The media took this story and ran with it. It was on nearly every front page of the newspapers and it was the main story for nightly news for a while. Akin had no chance of winning, especially with how many people got word of this story in a short amount of time. The timeline of events can be seen here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/us/politics/rep-todd-akin-legitimate-rape-statement-and-reaction.html?_r=0 . 

The point I have been trying to make is how much power the media actually has today. They can tell their followers to do something and they will listen most of the time. The media told the American people that Cain was not the right person to be president because he had no morals (they did not directly say this, but that was essentially their message). Akin certainly made a political mistake when he said the rape comment, but the media definitely escalated to a whole new level and gave Akin nearly no chance of winning the election. There are countless stories that are similar to these two, and they all go to show just how much power the media has over politicians.