Biased News and the Increasing Divide Between Political Parties
FAKE NEWS! America knows this as former president Trump's favorite catchphrase. It was his way of 'calling bulls***', especially when it came to claims regarding himself. He used this phrase so much that by the end of his presidency, every time he claimed something was fake news, it seemed as though he was 'crying wolf'. Despite the over usage of this phrase, news today, especially when it comes to cable news, can skew severely biased, bordering on the line of completely fake news.
It is common knowledge that Fox News and CNN are on the complete opposite sides of the spectrum from one another, with Fox skewing severely 'right' and CNN skewing severely 'left'. Instead of providing the public with 100% real helpful news, cable news sources care about pulling in the most viewers and unintentionally create a larger divide between the American people. In order to keep their specific demographic of viewers, these news sources seek out information that confirms their platform's emphasis. Cable news sources on the opposite ends of the spectrum rarely have news overlap. If there were to be any, it would likely be the usage of the same image, but with two differing stories, each to emphasize their beliefs. Those who tend to have more conservative beliefs tend to watch news sources such as Fox, which just confirms existing beliefs, through exposure of news that skews conservative. The opposite is also true. Liberals tend to watch CNN, which continues to only expose them to certain skewed ideas. These news sources just increase confirmation bias, allowing people to interpret new evidence as confirmation to their existing beliefs. Through watching news sources that strictly have taken a side "we may end up hating 'the other side,' believing they are wrong or evil".
It could be claimed that media bias is harmless. Everything seen on the news should be taken with a grain of salt and everyone should do their own research before formulating and opinion, right? Unfortunately, in this day and age, social media has allowed a harmless news story to be blown drastically out of proportion. People will take something little and run with it, until it has become twisted and changed completely- it's like the game telephone, but in real life. For instance, the hurricane shark. Since 2011, this photoshopped shark reappears with claims that it is hanging out in flooded streets after hurricanes. This may sound outrageous to some, but people fall for this every time. What's going to stop being from believing biased news? It came from Fox, so it has to be true. Reporters on CNN said so, they would never stretch the truth on live TV. Political polarization in the news continues to greaten the political party divide. It seems as though bias in cable news just leads to an increase in the butting of heads between the parties. Although the bias in cable news is frustrating, it is completely legal. As long as people keep watching, news sites will continue to broadcast this type of news.
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