The Daily Show, OR: Trump News Network

By Alex Lumley
alex.lumley1011@gmail.com

The Daily Show seems to be quite in love with Donald Trump- perhaps almost as much in love as their viewers are of watching host Trevor Noah make a mockery of "The Donald's" latest outrageous action or statement.

One need only look at the publication's official Facebook page to see this- as of 3 in the morning on Thursday, September 8th, more than half of the videos on that page's feed that were published in August contained direct footage of Trump or centered on discussion of the candidate, while not a single video published in the month of September featured Hillary Clinton's name in the title or description. Also, for the record, yes- I sometimes do stay up until 3 in the morning perusing Trevor Noah's content. What can I say? I enjoy his coverage of the Republican candidate as much as the next guy.

Interestingly enough, it seems as though this observation is reflective of a larger trend in mainstream media over the past week. The Daily Show, as its name would suggest, generally produces only one half-an-hour long segment per weekday. This means that they produce FAR less content in a week than major news networks like CNN, FOX, or MSNBC produce in a single day. But if we were able to increase the amount of content The Daily Show produced on a weekly basis to roughly match that of its major media outlet competitors, I'd be willing to bet that they'd have about the same amount of Trump coverage (read: a lot) to the same amount of Hillary coverage (read: not a lot).

It does make some sense. After all, The Daily Show, because of its comparatively smaller amount of air-time, has to serve as a highlight reel of sorts. They're going to take only the most noteworthy election stories run by the larger networks and condense them into bite-sized summaries of themselves, given a humorous spin. More often than not as I mentioned in my previous entry, Noah doesn't just play these stories for laughs and move on. Instead, he'll spend quite a large chunk of his airtime bringing in credible people to discuss these stories in a way that's far more frank and opinionated than anything you'd find on MSNBC or FOX (shocking as that thought may be).

Take, for example, the part of this segment in which Noah had a conversation with his Senior Campaign Correspondent Roy Wood, Jr. You would practically never hear a journalist on a major news network talk about Trump's reason for being in a prominently black church in Detroit in the way that Wood Jr. does. And that's exactly what sets The Daily Show apart as a unique voice amongst dozens of media outlets competing to tell the story of Election 2016- their ability (and willingness) to acknowledge and embrace the biases of their host and contributors, and to not let the pursuit of perfect objectivity hold them back from delivering the message they want to deliver. They're telling the story that they want to tell to the audience they want to tell it to.

ABC: Spotlight on Hillary

By: Megan Vanselow
megan.vanselow@gmail.com

Immediately into research this week, ABC flipped from last week, and the giant photo cover story was not only NOT the face of Donald Trump, but was the face of Hillary Clinton. Within the photo, however, were links to two different stories, one of which was about Trump and not Hilary. However, outside of this photo, all other articles on the "top fold" of the home page were not political at all, a.k.a. were not riddled with Trump's name.  

Looking closer into the headline story on Hillary, a few highlighted facts are important to note. 


"On Wednesday, department lawyers said a closer review showed most of those 30 messages have already been made public, a revelation Clinton supporters are sure to highlight."

This comment is extremely interesting because out of all of the facts and information within the FBI reports and press releases, ABC found this notable enough to include in their article. Obviously, it is a correct fact and has relevance to their story. It is the following comment about the "revelation" being one that Clinton supporters will call to hand and make light of. But by choosing to highlight this "revelation" themselves, ABC almost indicates that they support Hillary too, and that is why they've highlighted the fact by putting it in this piece.

The article goes on to make the claim that the Justice Department closed their investigation and the situation would be over if it weren't for the Republican Party pushing for more investigations. 

The video attached to this piece is an ABC interview with Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine where Hillary justifies that the classified emails she received were not marked correctly as classified. ABC gives her this outlet to make a case to the people that she was not in the wrong when it came to the mismarked classified emails, and gave her another opportunity to apologize for everything else. 

Last week, their lead story was filled with comparison's that after bad things about Trump, good things about Hillary followed. This week, it's not in the writing, but in the interview. Tim Kaine makes the comparison after validating Hillary's actions in being honest to the public, that Trump has not been honest to the public and has not given them what he promised he would. 

The 24-Hour Campaign

Tyler Prich
tp536712@ohio.edu

The New Landscape for Politicians

There are countless ways for a politician to campaign on social media; different platforms, strategies, etc. The candidates in this presidential election have chosen very different strategies for this election; albeit Trump seems to be more or less making it up as he goes. Hillary approaches social with pinpoint PR strategy - with regularly scheduled posts, controlled media, and a consistent brand representation across all platforms. Her campaign even launched a new tumblr page called Letters To Hillary, where she posts children's letters to the presidential candidate.

Whichever is more effective is yet to be seen - Trump has about 3 million more followers, although Hillary tweets, on average, 6 more times per day. What we have seen, is that social media has turned this election into a 24-hour campaign, where you have to be ready to strike at all times.

Tweets at the Ready

Election news breaks every day in today's society, and social media is the place for candidates to respond to it. When news about Clinton's email scandal breaks, the Trump team has to jump on it immediately. When Trump goes on TV and does what Trump does, let's call it speaking his mind, the Clinton campaign has to attack hard.

There is always campaigning to do, because social media does not rest. Clinton tweets about 18 times per day. But that number can be skewed by nights where Trump is in the news, and Clinton is there to jump on it. For instance, last week when Trump visited Mexico raised questions about the Republican nominee's potential leadership, the Clinton campaign spent all night tweeting anti-Trump content up to three times per hour. As I wrote this one, the Clinton campaign is constantly tweeting about comments he made on a news program about Barrack Obama. It's a chess game of moves and counter-moves, and if either side fails to respond appropriately, it can cost them dearly.

Donald Trump has proven over and over again that he's unfit to be our Commander-in-Chief. https://t.co/uLoHJdzXte

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 7, 2016

What's To Gain From All the Hate?

It seems that the primary goal for Hillary on social media, as we inch closer to the general election, is to simply defame her opponent and shine herself in a brighter light.This wasn't the case during the primary. Her posts have shifted from being based primarily on policy, to being about Trump being a racist liar. Which begs the question, what are we really gaining from these types of posts?

By this point, it's pretty clear that Trump is a racist and a liar. In an election where more people are getting their news from social media than ever before, it's being used as a place to defame an opponent and make one out to be "crooked." Rather, social media has the potential to be a breeding place for ideas, and a spot where candidates can present their ideologies and plans so that the public can make an informed decision.

It will be interesting to see how the strategies evolve as we move closer and closer to November.

Wall Street Journal: Equal coverage on equal issues

By: Shelby Dermer
sd647212@ohio.edu

With hundreds of news outlets out there to get information, it's nice to know there are reliable forms of media that gives honest and unbiased reporting on the world's most popular topics.

When examining the Wall Street Journal, one can conclude their reliability for the average user to get quality information.

If you are an avid reader of The New York Times, you've probably noticed a liberal agenda. If you're a fan of Fox News, you can conclude their conservative agenda. The Wall Street Journal, however, is a relaxing change of pace when it comes to coverage of the election.

Over the last week, WSJ has been covering the good, bad, and the ugly of both Republican nominee Donald J. Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Feeding off of Trump's visit to Mexico to meet with President Enrique Pena Nieto, one of the journal's biggest pieces was about Mexico's Finance Minister Luis Videgaray resigning following Trump's visit, this being huge news considering Trump's plan is to have Mexico pay for the wall he plans to construct to solve America's immigration problem.

While the visit was referred to by author David Luhnow as "humiliating" in the article, Michael C. Bender and Kristina Peterson think otherwise, claiming the real estate mogul had a great week in his attempt to catch Clinton in the polls as he rolled out a plan to boost the military on Wednesday in Philadelphia.

Donald Trump rolled out a plan to end spending caps to boost the military.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump leads Clinton among veterans with

military experience by nearly 20 points. (Photo: macleans.ca) 

These are good examples of the Wall Street Journal's constant unbiased platform. The same goes for Clinton as the Journal reported her pros and cons.

It seems the media can not get enough of Clinton's email scandal, with the Journal fitting that bill. Byron Tau scribed a popular article about how former Secretary of State Colin Powel also used "a personal computer to conduct government business."

Meanwhile, the positives also came out about the Clinton campaign as Colleen McCain Nelson's piece talked of her rolling out the big guns like Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren in an attempt to "cover more ground" as the days of the calendar count down to election day in early November.

Former Dem. nominee Bernie Sanders is hitting the campaign trail hoping

to give Clinton momentum as the election looms closer. (Photo:redstate.com)

This is what you get from the Wall Street Journal on a daily basis -- unbiased reporting that gives the pros and cons to each Presidential hopeful.

I know who I am voting for when November 8th rolls around, and there is not much of a possibility that the Journal changes my mind.

However, if I were to recommend an outlet for the undecided voter that needs more information in order to select the next President, the Wall Street Journal would be on the top of my list because it gives good information on both candidates without a certain bias to a specific party.

It will be interesting to see if the Wall Street Journal continues to report this way with each passing day. But for right now, their true colors seem to be fair coverage.

Trump Tweets of the Week

Jonathan Chantz
jc209914@ohio.edu

Donald Trump's Twitter handle @realDonald Trump is where the presidential candidate personally reaches out to his 11.4 million followers any and all thoughts he might think are important to his campaign. From the first day of September to September 7th I have noted his tweets and the content of his 54 posts. The vast majority of his tweets are about his poll numbers various states and where Donald Trump will be making an appearance, either on television or rallies. Six percent of his posts were retweets from his followers, most of which contained attacks on Hillary Clinton. The rest of his 21 tweets I had set into one of three groups, attacks, acclaims, and defenses.

Attacks led the count with 10 tweets that attacked Hillary Clinton, Republican Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, President Obama, Morning Joe television host Mika Brzezinski, and various major news networks. Both CNN and New York Times were attacked because of the bias they have against Trump and how they should no longer be considered credible sources. Trump tweeted, ".@CNN is so disgusting in their bias, but they are having a hard time promoting Crooked Hillary in the light of her new email scandals." This tweet attacked both CNN and Clinton and reached 40k hearts, the third highest liked tweet. Hillary Clinton or "Crooked Hillary" as Trump would often refer to her as had several tweets with his sassiest one pictured below.

Acclaims are anything that relates to how Donald Trump would perform or actions he would take if he were to be elected President of the United States. There were 9 tweets that included Trump's acclaims, most of which included something about building a southern border wall and how Mexico would pay for it. His most favorited tweet was " Mexico will pay for the wall!" with 59k hearts. Possibly the only new acclaims Trump was making was how he is reaching out to black voters when he tweeted a video of him speaking at a black church, Great Faith Ministries, in Detroit. Trump would later tweet about how CNN covered more of the protesters outside his rally, referring to this article.

Defenses came up last in Trump's tweets with only two posts that were made to defend something that he did or said.

In the history of the Presidential election there is no instance where a candidate had more attacks than acclaims in their campaign. If Trump wants to win the presidential election he should consider tweeting more about how he will change the country and less about how news organizations are being to critical of his campaigning.

NYTimes.com: Liberal Biased Media Brush Off Clinton's Health Concerns as Conspiracy

Micaela Marshall
mm392413@ohio.edu

The New York Times has a long history of being criticized for having a liberal bias. This week I decided to take a look at the accuracy of this criticism by discussing The Times coverage on Hillary Clinton's coughing fit on Labor Day during her speech in Cleveland, Ohio.

The New York Times writer, Amy Chozick, published an article on September 6, 2016 headlined "Hillary Clinton Treats Theories About Coughing Attack With Dose of Humor."

The focus of the story is primarily about Clinton coughing due to allergies during her speech and dismissing conspiracy theories about her health. The article also briefly mentions Clinton claiming to be "allergic" to Donald Trump.



This article is written with a light-hearted tone and style. It mocks the idea that people seem to look for any reason to not vote for Clinton; for example, it has been rumored her health is poor.

Clinton jokes that she has "created so many jobs in the sort of conspiracy-theory machine factory."

Source: http://christiantimesnewspaper.com/breaking-hillary-has-tongue-cancer-doctor-admits/

Chozick explains in her article that she is in "excellent health" according to a letter from her doctor. She fails to mention that this letter is from July 2015, which means it is not completely up-to-date.

Perhaps the real story here is one The Times is missing altogether because of the news outlet's liberal bias. This article not only ignores the signs of Clinton's ill health (such as the hole in her tongue pictured above, the long coughing outbursts which are hard to believe are solely from allergies, the possible seizures, and the numerous doctors who claim her health issues are more than just a rumor), but actually feeds into her "humor" deeming anyone who questions it is simply out to get her, or believes in "conspiracy theories."

But, is Hillary's poor health really just a rumor concocted by Trump supporters?

Well, not according to Dr. Drew Pinsky, former host of the HLN show "Dr. Drew On Call."

Dr. Drew said on KABC's "McIntyre in the Morning" that he was "gravely concerned not just about her health, but her health care." Eight days later, CNN cancelled the show and KABC deleted the interview from their website.

And Dr. Drew is not the only one who may have lost his job from publicly expressing validations to the "Hillary Clinton health conspiracy."

Former Huffington Post contributing writer, David Seamon, claims in this YouTube video that he was fired and his articles regarding Hillary's health were deleted once he shared speculations.

They are not alone in their concerns. At least 10 other well respected doctors have questioned Hillary's state of health.

I am starting to see a trend here: The liberally biased media is working to brush off any speculation regarding Hillary's health--deeming it a "conspiracy" while getting rid of anyone who tries to present the other side of the story to the public.

If Hillary really is as healthy as she claims to be, why is the Clinton campaign and the media so quick to retract anything that may prove otherwise and ridicule those who question it?

The Daily Show: Covering The Election With Comedy

By Alex Lumley
alex.lumley1011@gmail.com

The Daily Show, typically thought of as a comedy program, has spent quite a lot of time covering the 2016 American presidential election. While their coverage extends to a wide variety of topics, much of their focus since the summer of 2015 has been on the people running for the highest office in the free world. It seems that the candidate they’ve covered by far the most is Donald J. Trump, who is now the Republican Party’s standard-bearer.

And who can blame them? Certainly, the Daily Show’s focus on “The Donald” parallels most other major American media outlets. Unlike many other major news venues, though, it seems that the Daily Show spends most of their time covering Trump in direct opposition to him and his ideals. While other news outlets may be focused on trying to stay as objective as possible, Trevor Noah and the rest of his staffers on the Daily Show have no such agenda- they tend to criticize Trump, his supporters, and his ideas far more often than other media outlets do.

And while Noah can occasionally be critical of the Democratic Party and their presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, he spends far less time discussing her on average than he does Trump.

Perhaps most interestingly, the Daily Show’s unique position as a voice outside of the major media corporations like NBC, FOX, and CNN allows it to be more directly critical of other media outlets and personalities as well. While most of the Daily Show’s political coverage is spent discussing the candidates or their supporters, some time is devoted to criticisms of the ways in which the major media outlets are covering the election.

Trevor Noah in Cleveland for the Republican National Convention, interacting with his live audience.

However, like all other major media outlets, the Daily Show had the opportunity to travel to Cleveland and Philadelphia this past July for the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, respectively. Daily Show correspondents were able to gain access to the convention floor and speak with delegates, supporters, and in some case, detractors, directly.

That leads to another interesting contrast between the Daily Show and other major media outlets. Whereas networks like CNN, FOX, and NBC are able to interview candidates and/or their campaigns directly, the Daily Show’s coverage tends to focus more on supporters at rallies, such as in this case when correspondent Jordan Klepper spoke with Trump supporters.

The coverage of that rally itself was intended to be comedic in nature, but almost everything intended to be comedic on the Daily Show doubles as a pointed political message. This story was no different- it’s funny to watch the show point out the perceived hypocrisy of Trump supporters, but the segment also makes a biting political point.

With the election just two months away, the Daily Show’s coverage of the two major candidates is most definitely going to ramp up. What’s uncertain is whether or not the show will pay more attention to third-party candidates- very little coverage has been given to them thus far. 

Regardless, what is certain is that Trevor Noah and his staff will continue to cover the craziness of this election cycle with their unique brand of comedy, and continue to provide a perspective different than that of major media outlets.