CNN’s Election Coverage

Going into the 2020 election, America hasn’t been this polarized since the civil war. With this polarization, It’s no secret that news sources would favor one side over another. During the election , I listened to CNN for its coverage of the 2020 election. It was clear to me that CNN was biased towards Joe Biden and wasn’t scared of showing how much they were against trump.

When listening to the election coverage, I could easily tell that CNN wasn’t for Trump getting re-elected. The first thing I noticed was the image selection. Every time it was a picture of Trump, he would usually look mean and have a scowl on his face. This differs from Biden who was smiling and had a good time with the people he was with in the image. This image selection made Biden look like a better person and candidate than trump. CNN also used the angle of the picture, called placement, to further their bias toward Biden. They made Biden look more powerful overall by picking out images that had an upward angle of him.

CNN spent a lot of time covering what Trump had to say on Twitter. Trump’s tweets consisted of him saying to stop the count and also wrote about how the election is rigged. CNN opened up with these statements and even though Trump’s statements were outlandish, they used a lede. A lede is the opening lines of a news story and viewers can make their quick opinion about the topic. This lede affected the viewers perception of Trump as being a sore loser.

People who are just casually listening to the coverage might not realize these biases. For someone like my brother who was casually listening, he could be influenced by the coverage from CNN to support Biden. Media is very powerful in that they can create perceptions about the world and influence one’s thoughts about certain topics. It’s not bad for news organizations to be biased but people should be aware and do their own research to help themselves come to a conclusion on what they think.