Kathmandu. As voters and the global community turn their attention towards the Presidential nominees and the stakeholders who have invested sizable sums into their campaigns, many fail to consider the role of the press that covers the elections. The impact that these media outlets have on public conscience may even determine some of the routes leading up to the final decisions, simultaneously raising the question of journalistic bias.

The Pew Research Center has released information on this very issue linking the age and political inclination of a select demographic to the news that they consume. In a study done on April 2020, the Center found that amongst the top 8 American news channels individuals mostly refer to CNN and Fox News. On the list were other prominent names such as NPR, NBC News, ABC News MSNBC, CBS News and the New York Times. The survey was done between October 29, 2019 to November 11, 2019 amongst 12,043 adults who were involved with the institution’s American Trends Panel.

The New York Times editorial board issued a opinion piece on Friday, urging the public to vote for the democratic nominee and lead President Donald J. Trump out of the office to “end our national crisis,” citing him to be the ” “the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II.” The news outlet has been one of the most active sources that has condemned and sought to address the President’s policies and actions. On December 14, 2019, the editorial board had published another opinion piece titled “Impeach Donald Trump.” The piece openly declared that “Mr. Trump has been committing arguably impeachable offenses since the moment he entered the Oval Office,” that included “acceptance of foreign money at his many businesses, his violations of campaign-finance law in paying hush money to a woman who claimed to have had a sexual affair with him, and his obstructions of justice in the Russia investigation.”

The Hill has mentioned that the New York Times has not supported a Republican nominee during presidential elections since 1956. It also noted that in 2016 the New York Times editorial board called Trump “the worst nominee” while endorsing the democratic nominee Hilary Clinton. But this is not just a reality of a single media outlet. Fox News, for example has been mentioned in a separate Pew Research Center article of August 2020. The channel that was launched in 1996 has been accused several times of carrying a Republican bias. The study reported that Republicans overwhelmingly swarmed to gain political news from the channel, while democrats and democratic-leaning independents showcased “distrust” in the content that it provided. The research relied on the aforementioned 2019 data survey and a separate survey of 11,537 adults in the US, who were also a part of the American Trends Panel.

The research also detailed that those who referred to Fox News as their primary source of the administration’s policies hold different views of the overall situation in the nation. For instance Trump’s management of the COVID-19 crisis was hailed as an excellent approach towards tackling the global pandemic. The Republicans, in the 2019 survey, on the other other hand, displayed their distrust over CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post, where presidential and other political coverages were concerned.

With the President insisting on questioning the credibility of the free press at every turn, this may lead to another crisis in the long run. The free press is the lifeblood of the American democracy. There has long since been the value of unbiasedness associated with the media, and objectivity has evolved to include analysis and interpretation. The idea is to be based on facts and research, delivering the entirety of the story to the viewers and readers.