How the Media's Coverage of the Candidate's Debates Affects Who You Vote For

Over the years, there have been many laws that have been passed that deal with the Media's presentation of political candidates. In recent years, the goal of these new laws has been to give equal airtime and representation in the Media to all political candidates.

These changes have made improvements in the Media's presentation of the candidates. However, there is still a long way to go until the political candidates truly have equality in the terms of presentation by the Media. The Media continues to guide the view of the American people through selective coverage and tricks that are used during the candidate debates.

Ever since the first televised political debate, which was when Nixon ran against Kennedy, the Media has turned the people's views toward one candidate or another. Nixon stated that he did not want to participate in the debate because of the fact that it was a format that he was not comfortable with.

The Media at the time spent hours trying to pressure Nixon into acting in the debate. There were videos shown on TV of Kennedy's response to the fact that Nixon did not want to get involved in a debate in front of a camera. It got to the point that Nixon had no choice but to get involved with the debate.

When the debate finally happened, it was apparent that Kennedy had the advantage, and that Nixon was at a major disadvantage in the debate. Nixon was not comfortable doing a point/counterpoint discussion. Many point to this as one of the major reasons why Kennedy became President.

When Carter debated against Reagan, there was were more questions that were directed at Reagan then there were at Carter. The questions that were directed at Reagan outnumbered those given to Carter at a rate of 1.4 to 1. This gave Reagan an advantage since he was addressed more then Carter. Reagan won the Election.

When Mike Dukakis ran against George H.W. Bush for the 1988 Election, Bush was allowed more time to answer questions the Dukakis. A monitoring of the debating will show that Bush was given an extra 19 minutes of speaking time. In a fair and unbalanced forum, this would not have happened. Bush won the Election.