Week VI: Media and Scandals

The media was more than just a part of the election; it ultimately made the election what it was. The media's focus of coverage on scandals over policy is still hotly contested and controversial, to say the very least. But, the media's choice to do so, and whether or not it's ethically okay for them to do so, could be a senior project in and of itself. Rather, this post is about how each candidate functioned under the media conditions that existed.

In brainstorming through this idea with Mr. Westbay, we came up with two questions we wanted to answer: How did each candidate handle the media and their respective scandals, and how did the candidates let these scandals affect their campaign? We found that what mattered most was the candidate's identity.

For example, Hillary Clinton's identity exists as a politician. She had scandals because she was involved in politics, and because she was involved in politics, she had scandals. But more importantly, the scandals she dealt with were pretty significant.

The biggest scandals we could identify for Clinton were: the email scandal (see Week 4), Benghazi, the "Basket of Deplorables" incident, and issues surrounding the Clinton Foundation and alleged "pay-to-play". As I mentioned before, it's important to note that none of these scandals would have occurred were Clinton not a politician, but also they were a big deal because she was a politician.

The scandals dealt mostly with issues of national security and corruption, which are hot button issues on both sides of the aisle. Additionally, the scandals were covered in immense detail by the media while they took place, as well as during the election.

For Donald Trump, his experience was different because of his identity as a businessman. The major scandals we identified for Trump were: the Billy Bush tape scandal, his refusal to release his taxes, alleged Russian ties, mudslinging, his business failings, and corruption within the Trump foundation. The list of scandals for each candidate doesn't necessarily mean that Trump was involved in more scandals than Clinton throughout his lifetime, but far more were brought to the attention of the media during the election. (For proof of this, here's Seth Meyers comparing the scandals between Trump and Clinton that had been brought up mostly during the election. But, here's a more targeted take at the amount of scandals Clinton has been involved in throughout her career. Both of these links contain extremely biased perspectives, but they show how different your view can be on what scandals matter depending on what side of the aisle you find yourself.)

Trump's scandals were more frequently brought up, which could be negative to Trump's campaign. But because there were so many, each scandal didn't receive the same amount of in-depth coverage that Clinton's had, potentially not influencing voters as much (see this article from week 4). Additionally, the scandals weren't all universally agreed upon as negative. For a Republican who believes the government is taxing people too much, it may not be so negative that Trump may not have been paying a large amount in income taxes.

Furthermore, because he is a businessman, many scandals had only recently been brought to attention. Clinton's whole career has been in the spotlight, so it's possible that ten scandals spaced over ten years could create an entrenched narrative of a corrupt candidate, whereas Trump's ten scandals in ten months might not be a big deal if they've spent their whole lives thinking of him as just a business mogul.

As to another point, because Clinton is a politician, she's expected to be "polished". This means she rarely slips up and keeps a close eye on what she says, but it also means that any mistake is suddenly a huge deal. For example, the aforementioned "Basket of Deplorables" gaffe.

Clinton made the comment in an attempt to point out the issues she saw in Trump's base, but ended up having to apologize for offending people. Considering some of the comments Trump had made, I find it difficult to believe he would have apologized as well if he had been in the same situation. To me, this is because Clinton is expected to be "polished" as a politician, while Trump has been labeled as "raw" and "honest". (This article from the Washington Post explains why it is that Trump gained this label, despite frequently spreading false information on the campaign trail.) This reputation allowed Trump to make mistakes or take part in mudslinging or using politically incorrect insults, which gave the scandals surrounding his speech far less impact.

My final point surrounding media in the election is how each candidate's approach to the media changed the way their scandals impacted results.

Donald Trump was the candidate of new media. He focused a lot less on press conferences and interviews with main stream news outlets, and a lot more on social media. This is important for a variety of reasons, but the most important to Trump is message control.

Because Trump has created a narrative in which he paints the media as dishonest and fake, he needed an outlet to spread information to voters the way he wanted. In school, we learned that candidates love social media because it allows them to control exactly how they want their message to be said, without the media using sound bites or cuts of what they want to share. (This article from the Denver Post talks a little bit about how candidates are using social media to make their message clear and engaging to voters.) For Trump, his success with new media allowed him to redirect the way scandals were reported, and he held a much more accessible route to his audience than Clinton. This especially helped among Trump voters who did not have a college education, as they tend to carry less trust for media institutions.

Despite her best efforts, Clinton fell into success mostly with older media. She, like most politicians, could handle a live interview or televised press conference without many major errors. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it didn't help Clinton where she needed it: with millennials. Clinton's social media efforts were large and focused, but they just couldn't match the magnetism of Trump's twitter page. In losing the competition for social media attention, Clinton seemed out of touch, and it almost became negative for her to be so put together while Trump could be so "off the cuff". For more information on why social media matters, I would look at this article, which somewhat ironically compliments Clinton's social media targeting (to be fair, this was before Trump had truly come into the political spotlight).

In conclusion, Clinton didn't necessarily handle her scandals in a bad way, and Trump didn't necessarily handle his in a positive way. Rather, Clinton's identity as a politician became pejorative. Her scandals entrenched an identity of corruption, and often dealt with intense issues like national security. Because she had fewer scandals come to light, they received in depth coverage, even when they may have just been small gaffes. Ultimately, her "polished" persona and limited success with social media made her more vulnerable to these scandals. Trump's identity as a businessman was far more beneficial. His scandals received little coverage to match quantity, and he even was able to use social media to develop an identity as "raw and honest". He entrenched support by creating an accessible route to voters, and refused to let the scandals dominate his campaign.

Below is the mind map that says it all in a lot less words. Sorry this post is so long, but hopefully all of your media questions are answered.