2016 Presidential Campaign Presents Unusual Media Challenges

2016 Presidential Campaign Presents Unusual Media Challenges

The 2016 U.S. presidential campaign has presented unusual challenges to the reporters and media outlets¹ covering it. One of the tenets of serious journalism² in America is balance, but controversial statements from the Republican candidate, Donald Trump³, and allegations from the right of a liberal bias⁴ among the media in favor of his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, have spurred debates, transforming political reporting itself into one of the election storylines. There is uncertain terrain⁵ that the news media are trying to navigate⁶ in this election campaign.

The media have become protagonists⁷ in the 2016 presidential campaign, and that is mostly due to Donald Trump, said Tom Rosenstiel of the American Press Institute.

“Donald Trump in particular, and the Republican Party more general, made the press a character in the campaign, by saying that the press was incompetent⁸, out to get them, a level of demonization of the press that we don’t usually see,” he said.

Bipartisan bias claims 

While the Trump surrogates claim bias, Clinton’s supporters have accused the media of “false balance,” suggesting that things she has said - presented as evidence of her not being honest - are not equivalent to the evidence of Donald Trump not being honest.

“But if my job today in the story, is to examine what Hillary Clinton said and is it true or not, I am going to go after that, as hard as I can, I am not going to say, ‘Well, I think this is only three quarters as serious as what Donald Trump did yesterday in the story I did, so I am only going to cover it at three quarters intensity⁹.' You don’t!”

Dori Toribio, a Washington correspondent with RTVE, Spanish Radio and Television, says she does not believe that reporters have been biased¹⁰.

“Media are criticizing Donald Trump because of what he does, and what he says. It’s not because of an ideological¹¹ or political bias,” she said.

Latino reporter covering Trump 

Toribio said, even though it has been particularly hard for her as an immigrant and a woman to cover Trump, who has denigrated¹² immigrants and women. she has striven to be neutral.

For Thomas Burr of the National Press Club, the job of a reporter is to tell fact from fiction.

“That’s doing the critical, vital role a journalist has to have in a democracy, to educate voters and the public about what a candidate is saying, whether it’s truthful¹³ or not,” he said.

Observer mode best 

But Rosenstiel said there would be an enormous cost if journalists played arbiter¹⁴.

“What we need of our journalists are people who say: my commitment is to be an observer on behalf of other citizens, to find out the truth about what happened, what was said, why, what the motivations were, but ultimately it is the job of the citizen to determine what that means,” he said.

In the end, whoever enters in the White House next January, this will have been a memorable¹⁵ and unusual campaign, for the candidates in the race, but also for the reporters covering it.

1 outlets   

n.出口( outlet的名词复数 )；经销店；插座；廉价经销店

参考例句：

• The dumping of foreign cotton blocked outlets for locally grown cotton. 外国棉花的倾销阻滞了当地生产的棉花的销路。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They must find outlets for their products. 他们必须为自己的产品寻找出路。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

2 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

3 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

4 bias   

n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见

参考例句：

• They are accusing the teacher of political bias in his marking.他们在指控那名教师打分数有政治偏见。
• He had a bias toward the plan.他对这项计划有偏见。

5 terrain   

n.地面，地形，地图

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• He knows the terrain of this locality like the back of his hand.他对这一带的地形了如指掌。

6 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。

7 protagonists   

n.（戏剧的）主角( protagonist的名词复数 )；（故事的）主人公；现实事件（尤指冲突和争端的）主要参与者；领导者

参考例句：

• Mrs Pankhurst was one of the chief protagonists of women's rights. 潘克赫斯特太太是女权的主要倡导者之一。 来自辞典例句
• This reflects that Feng Menglong heartily sympathized with these protagonists. 这反映出冯梦龙由衷地同情书中的这些主要人物。 来自互联网

8 incompetent   

adj.无能力的，不能胜任的

参考例句：

• He is utterly incompetent at his job.他完全不能胜任他的工作。
• He is incompetent at working with his hands.他动手能力不行。

9 intensity   

n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度

参考例句：

• I didn't realize the intensity of people's feelings on this issue.我没有意识到这一问题能引起群情激奋。
• The strike is growing in intensity.罢工日益加剧。

10 biased   

a.有偏见的

参考例句：

• a school biased towards music and art 一所偏重音乐和艺术的学校
• The Methods: They employed were heavily biased in the gentry's favour. 他们采用的方法严重偏袒中上阶级。

11 ideological   

a.意识形态的

参考例句：

• He always tries to link his study with his ideological problems. 他总是把学习和自己的思想问题联系起来。
• He helped me enormously with advice on how to do ideological work. 他告诉我怎样做思想工作，对我有很大帮助。

12 denigrated   

v.诋毁，诽谤( denigrate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The critics have denigrated our efforts. 评论家贬低了我们的努力。 来自互联网
• For that whole group of citizens whose appeals for assistance have been similarly and irresponsibly denigrated. 为所有的申诉求助后，被同样不负责任的诋毁的公众。 来自互联网

13 truthful   

adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的

参考例句：

• You can count on him for a truthful report of the accident.你放心，他会对事故作出如实的报告的。
• I don't think you are being entirely truthful.我认为你并没全讲真话。

14 arbiter   

n.仲裁人，公断人

参考例句：

• Andrew was the arbiter of the disagreement.安德鲁是那场纠纷的仲裁人。
• Experiment is the final arbiter in science.实验是科学的最后仲裁者。

15 memorable   

adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的

参考例句：

• This was indeed the most memorable day of my life.这的确是我一生中最值得怀念的日子。
• The veteran soldier has fought many memorable battles.这个老兵参加过许多难忘的战斗。