Election 2000 A Media Disgrace
Election 2000-A Media DisgraceA national scandal. An international embarrassment. The closest presidential race in America’s history. And the media loved every minute of it. Savoring the proverbial field-day, U.S. journalists greatly assisted in dividing the country, destroying the people’s respect for the American legal system, embarrassing the world’s superpower, and simply annoying the crap out of everyone. To be fair, the American people repeatedly lunged for anything and everything remotely presidential, but we’ve been fined tuned by our media to expect exactly what we got: chaos.
In order to obtain more ground to cover, the media started off by telling the people just how different the two major candidates were (always relishing partisanship), when in truth, they aren’t that polarized. Of course, they have different views on how to accomplish certain goals, but for the most part, those goals are the same. It’s the usual, strengthen our economy, preserve social security, improve education, yada yada yada; the candidates just occasionally differ on how to do so. So now that the election stage had been set, then hyped up, then hyped up some more, we met with D-Day: November 7, 2000.
This is where the media starts to reek political havoc and slice journalistic credibility to ribbons. In a performance that will live in journalistic infamy, television’s most famous news personalities subjected the nation to an emotional, unnecessary, and irresponsible roller coaster ride November 7th. The farce that unfolded on television on election night revealed that, as much as the networks may try to pitch themselves as experienced and professional news organizations, they are anything but. Early Tuesday evening, Dan Rather invited viewers to “join CBS News for what the record shows over the years has been the most accurate presidential election night coverage.” Later, in primetime, Rather assured his audience, “if we say somebody’s carried the state, you can take that to the bank.” Instead, did the national media help put us in Palm Beach Punch-Card Hell with their irresistible urge to call the state for Gore ten minutes before the polls closed on the Panhandle? Did the media’s biased bad manners discourage last-minute Bush votes? And why did the networks lunge to call victorious states for Gore at the top of the hour, while eventual Bush states sat colorless for hours on end?...
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