The media has an impactful role in the way people view political issues. Whether it is the issues on the candidate's platforms or political scandals, the media is the main source where many people get political information. As a college student, this upcoming 2016 presidential election is going to be the first election that I am able to vote in. Many students, including myself, obtain a majority, if not all, of the information they know about politics from the media. The spectrum ranges from articles and television to social media and magazines. This topic is interesting because many people blindly follow the media and forget about bias. The way information is presented can help sway the voter one way or another. It is important to be unbiased and I believe that because I am aware of the bias in different media companies I am able to view this topic as a third party that is simply looking at all information. I am qualified to write about this topic because I am going to be a voter and currently I am trying to learn as much as I can about all the candidates by using the media.. I will first analyze two sources talking about the same political scandal and then analyze another source talking about the media's role in politics.

The first source is an online article from CNN explaining Hillary Clinton's email controversy. This article lays out the who, what, when, where, and why about the entire controversy of presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. It explains that rather than using government email addresses she connected to a privately-owned server. Clinton replied by simply saying it was for convenience and that clearly it wasn't her best choice because of all the controversy. Many emails were released and evidently many were about her schedule. It seems as though, from the thousands that were released, few were actually classified. A question many were asking was, "Did she break the rules?" and technically there was no rule against her actions until after she left the State Department. This article attempts to be as unbiased as possible and tries to give an account of the whole situation. The value and interest at stake is the credibility of the Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The author gives an account of what happened and explains that while it was wrong, it was not illegal. Eric Bradner, the author, is a credible source due to his experience in the field. He has covered many political topics such as international trade, fights over labor rights, education reform, and several House and Senate campaigns. He has worked for CNN, a credible news station, for many years now. 

This next source takes a very different interpretation of the same situation. This is where it becomes difficult because CNN is credible and known for being fairly moderate, but can swing a little left, while Fox News tends to swing to the right. The two articles obviously have very different thoughts on the controversy and it is up to the reader to decide which article is giving the facts and which is unbiased, and that can be difficult to do. The article by Fox News depicts the scandal as an unprofessional act of negligence to the security to the United States. While the first source says the classified emails were only a small portion, this article highlights there were several dozen private programs, and information that were classified and top secret. Fox News, unlike CNN, highlights legal action that has taken place in similar instances in the past and explains Clinton's fault in the matter. Again, the values at stake are Clinton's reputation and her campaign. Authors Catherine Herridge and Pamela Brown are both qualified journalists who earned degrees from prestigious Ivy League colleges and cover political topics regularly for Fox News. However, as we know Fox News can be conservative in their views and there is slight bias due to the aggressive tone of the article and the way it is attacking Hillary Clinton. 

This final source covers media as a whole and its more broad effects on how viewers see certain issues. This article attacks the issue of political transparency by saying that it both helps and hinders it. Television, for example, is a main topic in this article. It explains that television provides openness and accountability while also attempting to earn high ratings which causes them to show candidate's political strategies and scandals. These scandals draw attention to the program causing them to show actual issues less because they are just not as fun to watch. This article touches on interesting values such as transparency, democracy, and accountability. The article discusses these values when talking about transparency in Washington and having people know what is going on. This goes along with accountability for political officials and their wrong-doings. Finally, democracy is discussed in the fact of the whole population being able to have access to information and able to spread this information to an even greater domain. Jack M. Balkin is an American legal scholar. He works with the Yale Law School and has degrees from both Harvard and Cambridge University. He is an expert on telecommunications and technology for law and society, while also studying the implications of the internet. He has written several books and he is extremely knowledgeable on this topic as well as a credible source to gain information from. Balkin shows almost no bias toward the media or politicians and effectively gives the reader credible information. 

This topic is arguable, in that, it makes people question their sources. It is evident that for the first two sources there is debate about whether Clinton's acts were illegal. The sources are talking about the same topic, but have different interpretations and more research should definitely be done before jumping to conclusion about the legality of the situation. Source one states the classified emails found were nothing compared to the thousands released, while the second source states the couple dozen emails were extremely important and crucial to United States safety. This directly explains the question about how the media affects the way people view politics. The media uses a certain tone, and wording to get their ideas and thoughts across, not necessarily the pure, unbiased, information. Many people hear information and automatically believe it. Whether it is read in an article or watched on TV many people just take that information and never check it or challenge it to see if it is the pure information or the company's interpretation of it. It is important to check your sources and make sure the information is correct, the author or speaker must be credible and knowledgeable on the topic before you believe it. The articles also directly address the second question about the role media plays in politics. They highlight the values at stake and how the media can take a controversy and talk about it continuously until it actually begins to affect Clinton's campaign. These different sources definitely make me question the bias in many other media outlets now. Whether there is an obvious bias seen or not, there is always bias in everything based on the authors or speakers experiences and backgrounds. Now, that may begin to seem trivial; however, it really can affect the way certain issues are displayed. My research question should be revised to address a more prominent problem rather than an explanation of what the media does. 

