On Tuesday, October 13, the first of six Democratic debates took place in Las Vegas, Nev. The five candidates, including Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley, Lincoln Chafee, and Jim Webb, took the stage and fielded questions from the moderator, Anderson Cooper, along with additional questions from Dana Bash and Juan Carlos Lopez, with Don Lemon asking questions that were submitted through Facebook.
Since before the debate even began, Bernie Sanders and Hilary Clinton have appeared to be the frontrunners in this race. Compared to the other three candidates, these two have seemed to gain the most support during their campaigns. On Tuesday night, they proved this to be true. Just based off of speaking time, Clinton and Sanders showed that they dominated the debate. Clinton spoke for 30 minutes and Sanders for 26, whereas their other opponents all spoke for less than 16. During this time, both candidates successfully talked about the issues and their plans to fix them. Although both did well, our society thrives off of competition, and America seemed to have a clear idea of who won. According to a CNN focus group, a Fusion focus group, and a Fox News focus group, Bernie Sanders was the clear winner of the debate. Some members of the focus group who originally supported Clinton switched their vote to Sanders afterwards. But despite the data collected from these focus groups, along with countless other focus groups and polls, the media seems to have a different winner in mind.
After the debate, hosted by CNN, articles were popping up on its website declaring a winner. It seemed to them that Hillary Clinton was the clear victor of the first debate. "In his article Hillary Clinton's Big Night on the Debate Stage," CNN writer Stephen Collinson said that Clinton "had satisfied her goals of appearing as the most presidential candidate on stage." Other articles defined Clinton as the "winner" of the debate, whereas Sanders was "unclear" and the rest of the candidates were "losers." Just by scrolling through CNN's website, readers could see articles titled "Clinton Brings It" and "Why Hillary Clinton Dominated." But if Clinton "brought it" and "dominated," according to CNN, why do so many focus groups, along with their very own, show the exact opposite?
It turns out that media coverage is influenced by a lot more than just the news. Between 1999 and 2016, Hillary Clinton has received over $500,000 from Time Warner. $476,831 came from individual members or employees at Time Warner, and $25,000 came from its PACs. This puts the company in Clinton's top 10
donors from all throughout her career in politics. But what does all of this have to do with CNN's coverage of the debate? As it turns out, CNN News Group is one of the many assets owned by Time Warner. Politics is big business for large companies like Time Warner, and after showing so much support for HilLary Clinton over almost the last two decades, wouldn't it be in their best interest to promote her?
Having an unfair bias in not exclusive to CNN, and HilLary Clinton is without a doubt not the only politician to receive favoritism from the media. Fox News, MSNBC, and pretty much any other news source lean towards one politician or another every now and then. Journalists, and the organizations they work for, aren't perfect. Because of this, it's up to voters to take responsibility for what happens in politics. This means fighting through opinionated headlines to find the facts, and figuring out who funds politics, in order to be the most accurately informed voter one can be.
