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U.S. Media Drops Professional Ethics for Bias | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Republican US presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic
U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton look on at the start of
their first presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead,
New York, US, September 26, 2016. /REUTERS


Washington- U.S. media outlets have lately ignored many professional considerations with the developments of the presidential battle.

For the first time, they showed favoritism toward their preferred candidate because, for the first time, they were dealing with a figure like Donald Trump. Trump often uses vulgar language and gives racist remarks. Some members of the Republican Party even asked people not to vote for him.

Five weeks prior to the presidential elections, U.S. media let go of all kinds of decency and consideration while covering Trump’s campaign. They have explained his statements, highlighted his acts, and even accused him of lying.

Dan Kennedy, journalism professor at Northeastern University told AFP that the U.S. media slowly understood that this battle cannot be covered like a normal presidential campaign. He added that Trump has repeated falsehoods often enough till they clearly became lies. He deliberately repeated them like never a presidential candidate has ever done before.

The New York Times has recently outstripped its moderate principles to denounce the lies of the “rich man” after he blamed his democratic opponent Hillary Clinton for starting controversy on whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States.

On 24 September, the newspaper announced its support for Hillary Clinton two days before it published a tart editorial in which it spoke of Trump’s intolerance of other people and his false promises.

For his part, Trump has stigmatized the “spoiled and disgusting media outlets” and has meant to attack some journalists personally.

The billionaire’s credibility has remarkably plunged among media outlets, which pushed ten of those known with their conservative lining to call people not to vote for Trump by describing him as a non-qualified candidate to rule the country, or to announce their support to Clinton.

“The Dallas Morning News” and “Arizona Republic” made a historic step by announcing their support to the Democrats. USA Today, which has never taken a position during a presidential race before, has called its readers not to vote for whom it describe as “a dangerous demagogue”.

On its website, the USA Today published an article written by Mike Pence, Trump’s candidate for vice presidency, in which he said that Donald Trump is a gracious intellect who has steady positions and asserted that he is qualified to rule the United States and to lead the armed forces.

As per the Republican newspaper Chicago Tribune, it has decided to support the Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, and considered that Trump is not fit to lead the country.

Amid the ongoing division among the U.S. media outlets, Trump has found that Twitter is the perfect mean to communicate with his possible voters, according to Angelo Carusone, executive vice president of the left-leaning watchdog group.

Carusone saw that the current performance of media outlets is good but came late because they already covered the Republican candidate for one year without criticism, which led to him winning the presidential primaries.

It is worth mentioning that despite the majority of surveys have confirmed Clinton’s advancement after her last debate facing Trump, yet his supports have trended the hashtag “Trump_wins” on social media on Monday.

Lichtman noted however that Trump’s ability to control the mainstream media won’t help him in securing his victory in the general elections.

On another hand, results of the presidential battle are still unknown; however, surveys have showed the advancement of Hillary Clinton after the last debate with Trump on Monday.

Clinton’s attacks over her Republican opponent concerning his statement against women and his mockery at obese ones have led to reduce Trump’s chances among female votes.

Clinton has also received remarkable support of voters from Afro-American and Spanish origins, while the Republican candidate has received the support of many white men and elderly people.

Brad Kocher, survey expert pointed that Clinton have received additional support after the last debate, but the race maintains a high competitiveness and that results will be only determined by voters in boxes.

It is worth mentioning that early voting has begun in Iowa and will kick off in Florida within the few coming days.