To Vet or not to Vet

Does it matter if our next President is an ex-shopaholic? Few would argue against the fact that it is crucial to vet candidates' backgrounds before they become candidates. This is a process that allows the public to determine that individual's character and suitability for office. However, how far is too far in the vetting process, and how can we determine if something falls into the "need to know" category for public information or if it should ultimately be left out of today's media frenzy, a frenzy that tends to overblow information in order to garner extra money and mouse 'clicks.'

In the case of Marco Rubio's past financial struggles, I argue the former. This is "need to know" information that provides voters with key insight into a candidates' financial skill, or lack thereof. Rubio's years of money blunders and missteps speaks volumes about his ability to be responsible, his ability to lead a nation's economy when he has demonstrated that he couldn't even handle his own personal finances, and about his impulsivity of character. He was not just a guy who succumbed to buying his dream speedboat and ran into some college loan debt; Rubio made multiple, one right after the other, bad fiscal decisions that make me worry about how rash he will be with our nation's money or how impulsive he will be with government issues in general given what his financial history says about his character.

According to the New York Times article entitled, "Marco Rubio's Career Bedeviled by Financial Struggles," Rubio did not make a few isolated mistakes, but instead made copious bad monetary decisions over time. As stated in the article: "A review of the Rubio family’s finances — including many new documents — reveals a series of decisions over the past 15 years that experts called imprudent: significant debts; a penchant to spend heavily on luxury items like the boat and the lease of a $50,000 2015 Audi Q7; a strikingly low savings rate, even when Mr. Rubio was earning large sums; and inattentive accounting that led to years of unpaid local government fees.

In addition to this history of questionable financial decisions, Rubio in just recent weeks, was reported to have liquidated an early retirement fund of $68,000 dollars, which experts say will cost him 24 grand in penalties and taxes. As a very well-educated and intelligent man, one who is attempting to be the leader of our country, one might expect more from Rubio in light of these seemingly ignorant, uninformed, impulsive finance decisions. Not only do these missteps not match up with Rubio's political position and intellect, but they also are at odds with his campaign speeches. Rubio has been quoted saying, “We have a country that borrows too much money. If you allow politicians to spend money, they’ll do it.” He is certainly one of those politicians that 'did it', since he was also found using a party credit card to buy groceries and home repairs. Link

Despite this pile-up of blunders, one might argue that Rubio's financial decisions aren't accurate or fair predictors of how he would handle the nation's more serious finances. His faulty mortgages, Audi leases, and early retirement liquidations seemingly have no equivalent action that could be found in the case of the national economy, and we should not hold his past impulse buys against him.

However, even though these decisions are on a much smaller, personal scale, I believe that they are valuable vetting points that show voters some need-to-knows about Rubio's personality/character. In Matt Bai's book All the Truth is Out, he brings up a vital point about this type of controversial candidate vetting when he interviews Tom Fiedler, one of the Herald reporters who followed Gary Hart and published the story of his affairs. Fiedler said of the story, one that marked a critical turning point in candidate reporting, that it was ultimately up to the public to decide how much weight, or value, they grant to this information. It is up to the people to decide if they care about Hart's affairs, and it is the job of the media to get the information out there. Much the same, it was appropriate journalistic vetting to air Rubio's financial dirty laundry, and different voters can and may perceive this information however they so choose.

Personally, I do not give too much weight to Rubio's financial blunders, but I do think it is important information and it does, as a voter myself, make me a little wary about Rubio's ability to handle responsibility and to act with prudence rather than with impulse. I think the media did a good job with publishing this New York Times story and with making this information public information. I am a thankful voter.

Debatable Debate Winner

Interestingly enough, the 2015 Democratic Debate did not go untouched by media's eager hand. In looking at differing perspectives from Fox News outlets and MSNBC's coverage of the event, one can clearly see the role partisan media plays in election coverage. Meanwhile, mainstream news suffered a case of bias over this debate too, in leading Americans to believe that Hillary Clinton was the 'clear winner' by largely avoiding to fairly cover Bernie Sanders' successful, yet non-discussed effort.

One of the stories on Fox News' online political page is headlined, "NCIS gets more views than the democratic debate." Go to MSNBC.com and one of the stories on their political page is headlined, "Debate reflects well on  Democratic Party," and emphasizes its record 15 million viewers. It is no question that partisan media sources frame events to match their principles, as Levendusky argues in his article "How Partisan Media Polarize America" where every piece of news can be framed in 2 vastly different ways. Fox news viewers are now going to walk away from their computers thinking the Democratic debate was a joke, a failure that couldn't even compare to a popular crime TV show. Meanwhile, MSNBC supporters are going to walk away triumphant, thinking that their party's debate was a raging success.

However, the bias doesn't just stop here, only infecting the usual partisan media sources. For some reason, mainstream media also got a case of subjectivity. A Fox  news article entitled "Debate Winner? Are media back on the Hillary bandwagon" says that mainstream media's "Hillary verdict was nearly unanimous." The Washington Post said that she "dominated the debate" and The New York Times  described her superior performance as "commanding."





Evidently, if you read most any media article about the 2015 Democratic Debate, you would surely believe Clinton had it in the bag. Having not seen the debate myself, I read coverage of the event throughout the week and I almost pitied Bernie Sander's for what I thought was a weak performance. These articles even inadvertently raised my confidence in Clinton's ability to be a frontrunner in this election, and personally, I had no previous confidence in this candidate.

Surprisingly enough, Bernie Sanders did not do as pitifully as I thought. For some reason, if you looked at most media sources after the debate, you would be bombarded by Clinton praise. It seemed that the media disproportionately focused more on this candidate's performance, leaving other actually successful performances, like Sanders', in the dust. This likewise affects the public by making those of us who haven't seen the debate think there was this 'clear' winner that the media proposed there to be. In fact, there wasn't.

Certain research and political stats that arose after the debate, indicate that Clinton wasn't the only candidate whose performance was rewarded. According to a variety of consumer polls taken during and after the debate, Bernie Sanders, held his own in the debate. According to Fortune's "Did Hillary Clinton really win the Democratic Debate" article, polls say she did not. A Google Consumer Survey's poll put her a full 15 points behind Sanders.

Fortune's research states, "Three additional polls (still active at the time of writing) also show that Sanders was perceived as the debate winner with over half the vote. Time had him winning with 57%, NJ.com with 71.71%, and Fox2Now with 80.72%, almost six times Clinton’s 14.09%."

It is important to note that these polls, although conducted by major news outlets, were also informal polls that individuals chose to participate in. However, the fact that Fortune even ran this article attests to the fact that Sanders was overlooked by media and was well-received by many Americans who watched the debate. Another more compelling testament to Sander's solid debate performance comes from a article entitled, "Hillary Clinton Wins Debate, but Bernie Sanders Rises," wherein it states, "compared with pre-debate polling, Sanders' support is up five points." After the debate, Clinton showed no similar rise despite her disproportionate amount of praise post-debate. Sanders was clearly not praised enough by a media that chose to spotlight Clinton. Meanwhile, Frank Luntz of RealClear Politics  conducted his own focus group of Democratic primary voters who unanimously agreed that Bernie Sanders won the debate. (CNN Link). Therefore, the media was biased in that they failed to give more coverage to a likewise successful candidate performance.

This blatant media bias is concerning. It is concerning mostly because it is misinforming American's perceptions of the candidates, making them see Clinton in a better light and Sanders in a dimmer one. Is this fair? It would be fair if it were true to the people's verdict of the debate. However, Sanders is the one who went up in the real polls. Despite the fact that many Americans seemed to view Sanders as a winner, or at least many more than most media articles portrayed, the media consensus is spreading a different message to Americans who may have missed the debate. They are biased in that they chose Clinton to be the winner, but did not seem to let the people choose. These are the types of media biases that impact election outcomes, that subtract from democracy, and that misguide people's faith in their candidates.

Although Clinton's performance may very well have been "commanding" and superior and well-executed, this depiction of the debate should have been accompanied by formal poll statistics. The media should have also written more about Bernie Sanders' performance since it seemed to actually garner him more support than the media let on. Readers should have likewise known what their fellow Americans thought of the debate, and not just what the media thinks we thought. In other words, this was an example of a case where journalistic "balancing" would have lent to the type of "accurate coverage" that Boykoff and Boykoff advocate.

Meanwhile, how does this all relate to the grander scheme of partisan media bias? Why would all of these media sources clearly dub Clinton the frontrunner, including the known right wing sources like Fox News? My theory is that Clinton being the victor is better for Republican's than Sanders being the victor. Right wing media sources have continually bashed Sanders for being socialist and too extreme in his policies, so portraying him as a loser in this debate is actually a victory for scared Republicans. It is often true that journalists develop ideas about who they think will win or lose the debate and then they analyze coverage and debates in a way that supports their initial predictions. This seems to take place in partisan media outlets, like Fox, that always seems to dub Sanders the loser.

For example, the Fox news article by Howard Kurtz (mentioned above) that clearly portrays Clinton as the notable victor of the debate, likewise bashes on Sander's for his ostensible loss. Kurtz says, "Hillary Clinton won the debate for President. Bernie Sanders won the debate for President of Denmark," clearly ridiculing Sander's comments about his hopeful policies modeled after Denmark's. The article goes on to call Sanders an "unapologetic socialist." Once again, people who read this would think Sanders struck out at a debate that actually seemed to raise his support.

Overall it is clear that the mainstream media engaged in an unbalanced form of bias in their debate coverage, but this subjectivity was also endorsed by partisan outlets to be used for their own party advantages. Clearly, media bias is both partisan and mainstream, and it strongly impacts election coverage. This is a danger to the political process, to elections, and to the American people who may not be getting the right balance of information that they deserve.

The Media: Hillary's Real Political Opponent

The latest poll reveals that in the past two months, Hillary Clinton has experienced a 29% drop in the amount of female, Democratic voters that pledged their support to her. This decline in support directly coincides with the FBI investigation into Mrs. Clinton's email controversy and the media spotlight on her less-than-apologetic responses to this incident (Link). I assert that this correlation not only shows that what the reporters choose to spotlight in the news affects political outcomes, but also that this emailing scandal should have been handled differently by news outlets.

Although the media may have fulfilled their role as "watchdogs" by thoroughly bringing the Hillary Clinton email 'scandal' to the forefront of the public's attention, they also proved that reporters can change national opinion with their journalistic choices. It seems that this story just garnered too much attention, was too harped on, too overly publicized, and too talked about. For example, Fox News boasted a video segment entitled "Woodward Compares Clinton Emails to Nixon Tapes." The video briefly shows Woodward saying this emailing incident kind of "reminds him" of the tapes, and the Fox reporters go on to defend the fact that Clinton's scandal is very reminiscent of the Watergate scandal

(VidLink)

Her emails which have, so far shown nothing criminal, are being likened in this media source to a major presidential political scandal. It really shows that the media can choose headlines and can thereby choose to make an issue bigger and more serious than it really is. This has resounding effects into the political arena, especially on Clinton's campaign it would seem.

For instance, the polls show that many white democratic women, specifically, have chosen to abandon their hope that Hillary would be the first female president. When interviewed in New Hampshire and Ohio, women said that they no longer will vote for Hillary for reasons such as that they don't trust her or her judgment any longer. One woman, as quoted in the above Washington Post article, says of Hillary, “I don’t think she’s honest. I just don’t want the drama we had for eight years, and we’ve already seen it”(Link).

It would seem that now, Hillary Clinton, is associated with distrust, poor judgment, and even "drama." Many argue that this email scandal is just another way for journalists to continue their "existing narratives" about the non-transparent Clinton family(HuffPost). Meanwhile, Politico calls the emails a "cancer" on Clinton's campaign and a graph in its article demonstrates that over the past few months since the scandal broke, Clinton's polling average visibly declined nearly 20%. (Graph). There is evidently a clear correlation between the scandal and her declining support.

Had her choice to use her personal email not been so publicized for so long, and demanded so much attention, Clinton likely would not be seen in such a harsh light and her polls would likely not have experiences such a decline.The "drama" was created by the media as they took this story and blew it up for far too long. For instance, many media outlets continually posted updates about the scandal that yielded no new information such as ones that stated that she will 'continue to be investigated.' Her emailing 'scandal' just dominated headlines despite the arrival of any new, relevant information for the public. I believe the media should have reported on the initial issue as it arose, refrained from bombarding the public with speculative/opinionated pieces like the Watergate video (for example), and only reported about Clinton's emails when they actually had relevant, new information for the public. Speculation about what 'could' be in her emails instead dominated the media.

It is my personal opinion that while Clinton's choice to use her personal email, out of convenience, over her government email, was not a wise decision on her part, it also is not as heavy a topic as the media makes it out to be. It is certainly no Watergate. She offered full transparency of this personal email account and did nothing in secret. Yet, this story, ever-present in the media, has tarnished her reputation among certain citizens who have likely constantly seen the story printed.

If this incident were as politically condemning as the media makes it out to be, Clinton would likely be under more assault by her professional peers. However, when asked about the emailing controversy, Clinton said that no one talks to her about it, "except you guys" in reference to the reporters.



While I certainly don't wish to belittle the weight of Clinton's poor decision on the public's trust of government officials, and while I also respect the media's watchdog behavior in bringing this oversight to light, I also think that certain figures and certain situations are overly-publicized. Clinton is constantly insulted in the media for her unlikeable nature, and this just seemed like another tag-along attack on a woman who may not be the best at being camera-personable, but is also not the untrustworthy, drama-surrounded, public-trust enemy that this barrage of reporter attention on her email scandal has made her out to be.

As the Washington Post article and the Politico graphs show, the media attention about this scandal is directly linked to Clinton's sharp decline in the polls. This truly illustrates the power of journalists to determine public opinion, whether its fair or not. However, some may argue that Clinton brought this upon herself- she didn't follow protocol, she deserved the shame, she committed the crime and it is merely being reported on. I disagree. This email scandal has haunted her for the past few months because of the relentless media attention. Does her mistake necessitate that amount of coverage, an amount of coverage that has lost her many long-time supporters? I don't think it does.