It goes without saying, but the quadrennial election cycles are rough on us. 

People swoon for politicians, ignore their truths and call out their lies, disregard past histories and pick sides based on weak conjecture. Following suit, news media and social media alike begin to capitalize on the pressure. Across the internet, headlines of Election 2024 or race to 270 are bannered at the top of websites.

To absolutely no one’s surprise, some of the websites that claim to provide only pure facts didn’t offer fair and objective news. 

The station might have been bought by the political party or a candidate’s campaign, or maybe its writers just had personal biases against one side. Regardless, false information and fake news are constantly drip-fed to Americans.

Over the past eight years, fake news has gone from something of a niche conspiratorial theory about big media to one of the president-elect’s favorite terms. While he does use the term ludicrously for almost anything or anyone who disagrees with his ever-controversial ideas, he’s not entirely wrong. 

Media bias is a problem, and he’s right about that. It’s something that would not have been nearly as bad of an issue had Reagan not admonished the Fairness Doctrine, but I digress. You cannot just turn on the TV or open a news app and assume that whatever information presented to you is accurate and fair to all parties involved. 

The president-elects’s campaign against fake news shows his own bias is his assumption that the issues are strictly leftist news media outlet issues; right-leaning media is riddled with just as much bias. Each side also seems to follow the same logic: it’s only the others. Either the bigoted idiots or the neo-communists who are spreading lies.

Much of this issue can be directed at the corporatized news media. News needs to be pushed at all hours of the day, even on days when nothing of note happens. Ratings must be kept up, and investors must be kept happy.

The 24/7 news cycle culminates in most stories needing to be stretched way past their bounds. Stories that aren’t that important are exaggerated and overblown. Periodically, they need to be wholly fabricated. Sensationalism is the key, and absolutely never is no news allowed. A story must run.

Blinded by trust, people assume that any news organization that supports their socio-political beliefs and opinions is only speaking the truth. This falsity has only been worsened by the president-to-be’s constant lambasting of fake news rhetoric. 

President-elect Trump has gone an entire tirade against fake news. He has openly referred to media organizations as “bloodsuckers.” During a rally after the July assassination attempt, he said “To get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news – and I don’t mind that so much.”

His rhetoric and conceptions of media have trickled down to his base as well. To a not insignificant part of the MAGA movement, Trump’s favor with a news organization decides the reality of the news produced by the outlet.

People have a favorite news source and often take the news reported by the organization as fact. Even skeptics can fall for it. I also catch myself falling for it. I frequently find myself trusting my favored news sources, assuming that whatever they have to say is fact. Often it’s not.

News networks on both sides of the aisle are often affiliated with think tanks. Both conservative and liberal think tanks are at their core idea generators. They function as the yellers of the echo chamber. They come up with ideas and scream them at the masses entombed inside the antechamber. TV news networks act as the rounded walls.

A lot of these more biased news organizations, like MSNBC and FOX News (see image above), have become the concierges of the echo chamber they usher in the masses to be yelled political magniloquence to. The masses walk in, both voluntarily (choosing a TV channel) and involuntarily (using social media algorithms), but all the same, they are still too trusting. 

Trust is a commodity given out all too easily. It shouldn’t be freely handed to anyone who looks trustworthy.

It’s easier to assume that someone or something is looking out for your best interests and that they want you to succeed or that they strive to tell you the truth. In the same vein, it’s just as easy to forget that it’s a cutthroat world. Malevolent individuals will callously manipulate you and cast you aside to further their interests, both intentionally and not.

Manipulation is part of human nature, really. At the end of the day, we are still animals. We’re forced to survive in a world different from our kin in the biotic community. Instead of quarreling over the scraps left on a deer carcass, we politely fight over legislature and ideologies now. It’s more in our interests to argue over whether or not FOX News is lying more than CNN now.

You can get out of the cycle, though. Mitigate biases by researching sources on sites like AllCharts or Ground News. Find first-person sources instead of mindlessly listening to commentators and mimicking their opinions. Observe and educate yourself on the topics they are reporting on and formulate your own opinions.

Plug your ears and ignore the screams in the echo chamber. Democracy would be better for it.