Thursday, September 8, 2016

MSNBC: The Coverage Seems To Even Out

Jackie McCrea
jm059212@ohio.edu



Maybe it is because the race is getting closer, but the coverage MSNBC offered this week seems to be a bit more even on both sides.

 The traditionally liberal news outlet surprisingly released less stories bashing the Republican nominee, Donald Trump this week. In comparison to last week, this is a major change. In fact, in comparison to most liberal news outlets, MSNBC is practically leading the pack when it comes to evening out the coverage.

An explanation for this could be the release of the latest polls which projected Trump ahead of Clinton among those currently in the military or recently retired veterans.

 It is hard to spin a story one way or another when there are polls involved. However, the image (acquired from this article) still showed the democratic nominee pulling ahead overall. Of course, it makes sense that these polls would be put side by side, but surely a news site traditionally more conservative would not project Clinton ahead overall. Generally, polls are trustworthy, but it is important to notice that different news outlets provide different polls projecting the candidate they favor in the lead.

Still, for a news network traditionally on the democratic side, seeing this article was a bit surprising especially because other liberal news media outlets do not seem to be doing the same.

However, MSNBC also released an article backing Clinton among the military which explained that many army generals have thrown their support behind her. This article was much less thorough and only featured a quote from General Lloyd who claimed he "had a moral imperative to come forward and support Secretary Clinton."

Through MSNBC's homepage the coverage does appear to remain pretty level, offering coverage to both candidates and featuring few pieces that bashed either of them. Of course, when one takes the time to scroll through the top stories, some anti-Trump editorials will appear, but for the most part the homepage seemed to offer both candidates an even amount of space.

The videos below show each candidates point of view on major Commander-in Chief issues. One major thing missing from a lot of the latest news coverage has been the layout of each candidate's position on major issues. Luckily the article that contained the videos below did just this.

As previously discussed, Americans value the platforms of candidates and perk up when they actually get the chance to hear a candidate, uninterrupted, discussing their views. This week MSNBC did a much better job of presenting this side of the presidential race.

Most news media outlets tend to claim that they are unbiased, but most of us know that is never the case. This week it was refreshing to see both candidates represented and their points of view actually published. Sadly, many Americans may not even know either candidate's take on major issues because the media does not tend to focus on that. I have to commend MSNBC on their featured articles this week. Because the election is getting closer and heating up it is time to start focusing on the issues!

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