3 Sides to Every Story

As the election progresses, the candidates are beginning to thin out, with some dropping out of the race, while others continue to campaign despite the fact that they are fading into the background. As many candidates begin to fade away, those whom are at the top of the polls are becoming more visible and more frequently discussed, as the media begins shifting its attention to keep up with the race. An interesting phenomenon occurs during this process of the contenders’ rise to the top; week by week, a story seems to be unfolding. With each debate, appearance, interview, and tweet, the candidates are weaving a narrative of their personal lives, their professional lives, and what America will be when they take office; or in storybook terms- a past, a present, and a future. Also like a story, there is a prevailing message which the author wishes to get across to the audience. For example, Trump’s unmistakably loud and clear message is that he is the best there is, and he does and gets what he wants, which in this case, is to make America great again using his unmatched overall awesomeness.

Interestingly enough, this message of awesomeness is not typically what is relayed by the media. In fact, the story that is told by the media about the Trump has quite a different angle than does the story Trump is telling about himself. Ultimately the facts are roughly the same; just the delivery and the tone are quite different. This is because, much to Donald’s dismay, the “losers” in the media are weaving their own narrative about Trump, as they do with every candidate. As the race has progressed, the media’s narrative about Trump has evolved from its beginning stages, which were mainly dominated by humor inspired by the utter disbelief that Trump’s candidacy was anything but a prank. As the months had passed, and Trump had still not announced that we are all idiot losers who fell for his genius prank, the media’s message shifted to seriously assessing Trump’s ability to become the president. Today, a situation exists where Trump has offended nearly everyone in the media, as he seems to be testing just how offensive and outlandish he can be; so most of Trump’s coverage has a negative tone, and in a way hints at our lack of competence as a country for even entertaining this non-sense. To demonstrate this point, I give you an article from the Washington Post. The article is called “Losers: A list by Donald Trump,” and it summarizes some of the more notable situations in which Trump has publicly called people losers, typically following a disagreement of sorts. This article was published in August, meaning Trump has had half a year of offending people since then. A more recent article published today in the New York Times, called “The Five Stages of Donald Trump’s Grief Over His Loss in Iowa,” gives a humorous account of Trump’s behavior during the hours following his loss in the Iowa caucuses. What is entertaining about the media’s narrative of Trump is that they don’t really even analyze his words or try to counter him; all they have to do is compile a list of Trump quotes, maybe add a sarcastic remark or two, and a satire piece is born.

The situation with Trump is somewhat unique, though, because of his previously established role as a public figure with some widely known, to put it nicely, quirks. The narrative woven by the media is not always quite so negative. For example, the media’s narrative about Marco Rubio may not be the same as his own, but it is not negative by definition. Marco Rubio’s narrative of himself casts him as a wholesome family man with hard-working immigrant parents, a conservative Republican with a record of advocating what is best for America, and a vision of “A New American Century.” His narrative is more typical of the average presidential candidate. He is young, energetic, and gives a lot of effort. He maintains a fairly positive tone, including heavily stressing the support he has from minorities, regardless of the fact that his policies are not exactly appealing to minorities. Overall, Rubio paints a fairly cheery and hopeful picture.

The media’s narrative about Rubio is slightly different than his own, as he is often portrayed as the underdog who is working to the bone just to keep up. An example of this comes from a New York Times article called “Marco Rubio Campaign Dispatches its Army and New Lines of Attack.” Admittedly, it is a pretty cool title which suggests some toughness in Rubio. It focuses heavily, though, on the struggle that Rubio’s campaign is facing, and there is a definite sense of doubt. This view of Rubio’s campaign, truthfully, is probably the more realistic of the two, as a campaign for the United States Presidency is not all sunshine and rainbows as most candidates like to act. Truly, I feel fairly confident that never will the day come that a presidential candidate runs on total honesty with no spin, just as the media will never stop adding their spin. There will always be three sides to every story- the candidate's, the media's, and the truth. For better or for worse, at least we're entertained.