by Mikenna Nikolaus

Created on: July 04, 2007   Last Updated: March 19, 2008

While the press does not directly choose the president, they do greatly influence the publics mindset on who to choose.

In the months leading up to the primaries the media decides who are the front runners in the election. They let you know who will be competing for their parties votes. If a person does not receive enough attention from the media in those crucial months one can be assured he has no chance at winning the primaries.

Before and after the primaries the media plays a large role in deciding what is important about each and every candidate. Rarely does the media focus on actual ideological standpoints and platforms of each candidate; instead they focus on issues that will generate the most attention. For example, if you wanted to know Barack Obamas standpoint on welfare funding in this fiscal year it would be very difficult to find. If you wanted to, instead, find out his criminal record it would be a different story. The media only focuses on the issues that have no political significance, increasing the way the ignorant public feels about different candidates.

During presidential campaigns the media helps to provide the public with information about who is 'winning'. The way they do this is through numerous polls, most of which are biased, each reporting which candidate is ahead. This mutation of the presidential campaign into a horse race, can be said to be another way in which the media helps the public to decide. If a citizen is watching television at home and sees that his or her candidate is fifty-four percent behind in the polls, that person is likely to become apathetic about voting, since his candidate is already behind.

Another way the media aids the public in their voting habits is by continuous usage of photo ops to make the candidates look good. These photo ops include candidates helping the less fortunate, kissing babies, and proudly parading their patriotism. In this way the media turns the presidential campaign into a beauty contest, with the public deciding which of all the candidates they find most appealing; not on a political level, but on a aesthetic level. Basically, the media reduces the presidential race into a beauty pageant, with the most beautiful candidate getting all the votes, leaving the less beautiful, but more qualified participants in the background.

Through these and other tactics the media heavily influences the way the public views each and every candidate. While Dan Rather can not be in the polls with each and every citizen when they vote, he can tell them who is winning, what they are doing, and how they look when they are doing it. It is with that power to mold peoples opinions to fit with their own that the press does, in effect, pick our presidents.

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