News Outlets Are Obsessed with Russian Meddling | Teen Ink

News Outlets Are Obsessed with Russian Meddling

May 18, 2018
By OweenTheGreat SILVER, Cannon Falls, Minnesota
OweenTheGreat SILVER, Cannon Falls, Minnesota
7 articles 0 photos 0 comments

“White House Graciously accepts Saudi Prince’s Thank You Gift Of Severed Yemeni Head” The Onion reported on March 30th. Could this story possibly be true? The American news outlet, The Onion, is based on fake news, But when it comes to other news outlets like CNN and NBC, are they occasionally making fake news? The Russia investigation is the perfect thing to test considering president Trump calls these outlets fake news when regarding the Russian meddling. By the definition of fake news, popular news outlets such as CNN are not actually creating fake news on Russia meddling into the 2016 presidential election. Rather, these outlets may be over-reporting or establishing their own narrative, and they indeed are. This is the case for four reasons. One of these reasons being that it is causing the feeling of a cold war, the second because it is causing disruption between republicans and democrats. Third, because no evidence of a change in the outcome of the election due to hacking has been found. And lastly, it is discrediting Trump and the republicans.


The first reason why news outlets are over reporting the Russian meddling is because it is bringing back the feeling of a cold war. The New York Times reported on April 2nd 2018,  Russia has been seen moving nuclear weapons from place to place, and have been growing their military. Having American news outlets accuse Russia of hacking and meddling in US elections only aggravates them more. It is only further pulling apart US and Russian relations. Not only are relations being pushed farther apart, but Russia has claimed to making new weapons. According to CNN on March 1st 2018, Putin said that he had made an invincible weapon that would render NATO defenses useless. Russia has already taken a step forward and showed the world that they are ready for battle even if Putin’s claims are not true. Going back, the recent growth of tension between the US and Russia is because of the alleged meddling. Now that Russia is showing off weapons, the news outlets should lay back on reporting of Russian meddling so that tensions can fall more quickly.


Not only does the reporting of meddling increase tension between the US and Russia, but it also is causing disruption between Republicans and Democrats. A Los Angeles Times article written by Eugene Rumer on January 22th 2018 said the obsession with Russia is preventing sane debate. The constant denial of the republicans does not mix with the democrats pushing to move the investigation further. More reporting of the Russian meddling only makes the relationship of these two political parties go down substantially. The two groups need to have good relations so that the government can get more things done. The Washington Post reported on April 20th 2018, that the democrats believe that Trump and Wikileaks caused serious damage to the democratic party. This has furthermore made it so that the republicans and democrats can only blame each other for not being able to get the whole deal figured out. Because of the disruption between parties inside the US is rising, news outlets should lessen on producing content regarding Russian meddling.


The second reason why news outlets are over reporting the Russia meddling is because evidence of a change in the outcome of votes in the election has not been found. According to Factcheck on March 12th 2018, the idea that Russia affected the 2016 election started in late 2016 after president Trump had won the election. The idea of meddling is not new at all. The US itself has tried to influence other countries elections in the past as well. The only difference about the 2016 election is that it may have including hacking, but it did not. Wired reported on March 22th 2018 that Russia had created social media accounts to influence American people to vote for Trump instead of Hillary. Other countries including the US have done the exact same thing in the past for elections, so it doesn’t make sense why the US news outlets are doing so much coverage of this. We can see that the lack of actual evidence of hacking should prevent the media from considering this any bigger than it truly is.


The last reason why news outlets are over reporting the Russian meddling is because it is falsely reflecting on Trump and the Republicans. According to Vox on March 12th 2018, MSNBC, a left news outlet, had tons of coverage on the Muller investigation. A right news source, Fox News, only made content on how the investigation was leading to nothing. This shows that the investigation is more aimed towards a goal of the left. Many Liberals are currently hoping for Trump to be impeached, and having the Muller investigation go deeper and pull out evidence will only further increase the likeliness of this happening. Because there is currently no evidence of hacking, until new evidence is found, excessive amounts of coverage on this topic is only making Trump and the Republicans look like they cheated their way into office. This has affected Trump's approval rating greatly and dramatically brings down his chance of reelection. An opinion Washington Post article uploaded on March 2nd 2018 by Amber Phillips, actually was bringing the idea of a GOP conspiracy. It is highly unlikely that all republicans in the government would be going through with a conspiracy with Russia. This article is only putting the idea into American’s heads more reasons on why the investigation should go further, and how untrustworthy and unpredictable Republicans may be. From pure disliking of Trump and the Republicans or unnecessary speculation, some news outlets are creating more content on the Muller investigation than they really should be.


For four reasons, news outlets are making too much content on the Russian meddling. One of these reasons being that it is causing the feeling of a cold war, the second because it is causing disruption between republicans and democrats. Third, because no evidence of a change in the outcome of the election due to hacking has been found. And lastly, it is discrediting Trump and the republicans. The reporting on the Muller investigation is nothing like an Onion article, but still needs some fixing. Once the over producing of this content ends, the US citizens will have a better depiction of what is happening throughout the world.



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