If There Is A Liberal Bias In The Media, Maybe This Is Why

By Emily Cutler | Late Night TV | July 29, 2016 |

By Emily Cutler | Late Night TV | July 29, 2016 |

It’s a not-so-secret secret around these parts that I’m not a huge fan of Hillary Clinton. I don’t hate her, I’m not a Bernie or Bust asshole, and I will vote for her. But I don’t particularly like her. Imagine going to a wedding where the dinner options are boiled industrial waste runoff topped with rancid cottage cheese or salmon. Salmon is the clear winner, right? Unlike the first option, salmon is food, it won’t make you violently ill, and you don’t have to be a crazy person to eat it. Salmon is a fine choice, yes? It just so happens you don’t like salmon. This is where I am.

So I was a little surprised to find that I was actually really enjoying the DNC. You’d think with all of the bitter division, as a Bernie supporter, I should be hating it. But I really, really didn’t. And I don’t think I was the only one. Here’s Seth Meyers’ coverage of Hillary’s acceptance speech, including some highlights from the previous days.

That was nice, right? Some burns directed at Trump, but mostly a call to come together to make things better for future generations. It all seems pretty jovial.

Compare that to the same coverage Late Night did for the RNC.

“Donald Trump officially accepted the Republican nomination for president tonight in an hour-plus long speech that cast a dark view of America based on fear and misinformation.”
Yeah, sorry, RNC, but you can’t make fear and misinformation your platform, and then get upset that the media is portraying the DNC in a better light.

And it’s not Meyers’ personal opinion that Trump’s speech was filled with misinformation. According to PolitiFact, Clinton’s speech was by and large mostly truthful. Trump’s was mostly half-true. When you lie about something, and someone calls you out on that, they aren’t being biased. That’s not how this works.

In fact, the media has been “showing its bias” by calling Trump out on his half- or blatant-lies for the entirety of his campaign now. He’s taken a lot of liberties with the truth while, despite her image as deceptive, Hillary hasn’t. And while you could argue that focusing on one particular part of either convention is biased (after all, they must have done something other than have a mock trial for Hillary), you can’t make up what isn’t there. Both conventions mocked the opposition. But the RNC focused on fear and America’s downfall while the DNC focused on advancement and the future. The tone in the conventions can’t be ignored by the media in order to avoid the appearance of bias.

And on a final note, one of the conventions used the opportunity to continue division and to boo rivals within the party. The other convention allowed this moment to happen for the nominee’s main opponent.

Dammit, how’d it get so dusty in here?