In American politics, in light of the recent appointment of new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, it is important to remember that anyone in line to be a representative for our nation is in the eye of the entire world. Not everyone will agree with their views. Not everyone will like them; Especially if the people aren’t apart of whatever party these candidates are representing. With this issue of the career of these candidates being at stake, there are people that disagree with them and will go to whatever lengths to make sure they are not able to represent the country for whatever position they are said to be running for. Again the most recent headline that has our political parties going head to head is the newly appointed Supreme Court Justice, Brett Kavanaugh who serves a perfect example of what media bias can do to your political campaigns, how your past life decisions can affect you now, and how the opposing political party will do anything and everything to destroy you along with your career.
The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia opened up a new spot on the line of justices and it was in the hands of pretty freshly elected President Donald. J Trump. Trump, not being very well appreciated by our nation anyways, had chose to appoint a man who was ALSO not very well appreciated by many people. Brett Kavanaugh, an American lawyer and jurist. As previously stated, in American politics, if there are people out to see that your career fails, they will do whatever it takes to make that happen. Not too long after the announcement that Kavanaugh was in line to take the spot of Scalia on the SCOTUS, there were allegations released that Kavanaugh has been a sexual perpetrator against many women in his late high school and early freshman years of college. One woman who claims she was a victim of this sexual assault identifies as Christine Blasey Ford, age 51. She claims that her freshman year of high school, age 15, she attended a gathering at a small residence that Kavanaugh also attended, and they were all drinking beer. She claims in her opening statement at the trial that she “went up a narrow set of stairs leading from the living room to a second floor to use the bathroom. When I got to the top of the stairs, I was pushed from behind into a bedroom. I couldn't see who pushed me. Brett and Mark (another friend in the house) came into the bedroom and locked the door behind them. There was music already playing in the bedroom. It was turned up louder by either Brett or Mark once we were in the room. I was pushed onto the bed and Brett got on top of me. He began running his hands over my body and grinding his hips into me.” A lot of her answers during questioning, however, resulted with the answer of “I don’t know,” “I don’t remember,” or “I was too drunk.” So many citizens have questioned whether or ot these allegations are true, and if Ford isjust out to see Kavanaugh’s career fail. She continued on to say that the other man who watched the assault take place, is identified as Mark Judge, did not assist Ford in escaping and she was eventually able to get Kavanaugh off of her, allegedly fleeing the house onto the street afterwards. She claims she didn’t speak of it for this long for the fear of her parents being angry with her for attending such an event, and also that since she technically was not “raped” it would be easy for her to move on from this situation. She also claims in her opening statement that after years of the memories being pressed into her mind and a couples counseling session, this memory will not subside. Thus her efforts to put a rest to this situation and see that Kavanaugh does not move forward with his appointment. Another allegation brought forward, which has not been a major focus of this trial was that 35 years ago at Yale University, “Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her (Deborah Ramirez) face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.” As stated in the Washington Post, Ramirez had a fair amount of alcohol that night and chose to stay silent all these years because she blamed herself for consuming too much alcohol.
Kavanaugh has expectedly denied all of these allegations in order to save his chances as being a member of the Supreme court Justices, and the decision of whether or not Kavanaugh can still be appointed had been dumped upon the United States Senators. This story created a rage between the Democratic and Republican parties. Majority Democratic beliefs being that Kavanaugh should not be appointed and we as a country need to stand for these women and what they have allegedly suffered through. Majority Republican being that even if these allegations are true, why would we let the fate of a man’s career depend on stupid mistakes he made years ago as he was still just a “kid”.
` With this storing creating outrage, the media of course began to cover every aspect. A big fact about media, especially in politics, is that they have the ability to twist any story and make it believable in the public eye. This is called “media bias”. There are many forms of media bias and I will name just a few that are relevant to this story. “Student News” defines these different terms of media bias as; Bias by omission – leaving one side out of an article, or a series of articles over a period of time. This can be seen in many articles where only the statements of Ford was made, leaving out Kavanaugh’s testimony. Bias by selection of sources– including more sources that support one view over another. Many articles covering this story tend to have sided with one political party and do not cover anything about the other. They use statements from people who support the more favored side in the article, or use more facts that support that side as well. This meaning that if the article chose to support Ford, it was a Democratic based article. And if it chose to support Kavanaugh then it was a Republican based article. Bias by spin– Bias by spin occurs when the story has only one interpretation of an event or policy, to the exclusion of the other; spin involves tone – it’s a reporter’s subjective comments about objective facts; makes one side iedoligically look better than the other. This type of media bias gave writers the ability to for those who did not wish to see Kavanaugh in appointment, slander his name. It also gave the opportunity for anti-Trump supporters to lay in on Trump and his beliefs, while trying to prove still after almost 2 years of him being in office, that he is not fit for the job of President of the United States. Bias by placement– Story placement is a measure of how important the editor considers the story. This specific type of media bias is very important and relevant to this story. If the media would have never found out about these allegations and saw that it was a huge story to cover, then Kavanaugh would have never been under the fire. Most things could have been done more privately and the situation ould have been handled less aggressively.
After the facts were released and the trial was over, it was decided that these allegations were not concrete enough to uphold the unappointment of Kavanaugh. Therefore Brett Kavanaugh will still be sworn in as the next member of the Supreme Court Justice of the United States. Many people are outraged but The Washington Post explains why these allegations possibly were not supported. They state in their article that covered all the allegations that “When journalists write about incidents that occurred long ago, especially serious allegations such as sexual misconduct, a key goal is to find people who will say that they heard about the incident at the time. Such contemporaneous accounts are essential to establishing the credibility of the allegation because they reduce the chances that a person is making up a story for political purposes.” Also shown in this article are all of the witnesses to Ford’s statements and their testimonies. None of these testimonies date back to when the incidents occurred, therefore it was difficult for the facts to remain concrete since the only person testifying facts from that time were the women who were again, allegedely attacked. Again, although these people are outraged and feel that Kavanaugh’s actions need to be accounted for, there needs to be more facts, more witnesses, and more people willing to testify. Until then Kavanaugh has won this case and will proceed to be the one of the next Supreme Court Justices. This story was a great example of how your past can play a huge factor in your future career/ life, how the media will do anything to earn as much money as they can even if it involves stretching the truth/not telling the whole truth, and how our political parties really do have different morals/values.