When the most information about an upcoming election comes from a comedy show, something is not right.
Tuesday was Election Day for 2015. Though not as widely addressed as the upcoming presidential election in 2016, the 2015 election decided many important things that could impact various communities or even entire states.
Despite this, many people, including major news outlets, didn”t do much to emphasize the election”s importance.
In the weeks leading up to the 2015 election, there was virtually no information available about the candidates or the laws that were up for vote. Most major media was focused on the 2016 presidential race and its star, Donald Trump.
Erin Bamer
The day of the election made little difference to news organizations either. Yahoo News had information on the 2015 local elections up on its main page, but nowhere on the more traditional news sites like CNN, FOX and CBS was there coverage on the organizations” front pages.
In Moscow, the city”s website did include information on the candidates running for City Council, but most of the other information was about how a citizen could apply for candidacy. It was unreasonably difficult to find information about when and where the actual voting would take place.
On the University of Idaho website, ASUI mentioned that elections were taking place Tuesday, but the majority of the information was on how to register to vote. Some other websites even gave false information, claiming that polls would be open in the Kibbie Dome when they weren”t.
There have been multiple efforts in the Moscow community to encourage more young people to vote in elections. While offering information on the candidates and giving students easy access to register to vote are both helpful steps, young people can”t vote if they have no idea where the polls are.
On the national scale, the most information about the 2015 elections – at least from what I saw – came from the comedian John Oliver on his weekly show “Last Week Tonight,” just two days before Election Day. During the show, Oliver specifically addressed the expansion of Medicaid as an important issue to be determined in multiple state elections.
I only received this information because I subscribe to “Last Week Tonight” on YouTube, and I was by far more informed by Oliver than any other news source I checked. I”m not sure what the people who aren”t subscribed to Oliver did to learn more about this year”s election. It”s likely that a lot of college students first heard about the elections on Tuesday – maybe some people are only just being informed as they read this.
This doesn”t mean the 2015 wasn”t important, however. In fact, this year”s election was even more important than the 2016 election at the present moment, because the 2016 election isn”t for another year.
The news has had a heavy focus on whatever feud Trump has gotten himself into with another Republican candidate, and major media is capitalizing on it because it”s entertaining even though it doesn”t make an actual difference in anything. But, in doing so they missed the chance to cover important stories that could actually impact their viewers.
Some news organizations seemed to realize this at the last minute, as outlets including CNN, FOX and The Washington Post all published reviews of the 2015 elections online after the votes were counted. Too little too late.
Maybe there was a plethora of information about the 2015 elections available somewhere other than online, but the fact remains that a large portion of Americans look to the Internet as a primary source for news nowadays. News sources should be obligated to give their viewers the information they need to know, not just the drama they think their viewers want to know.
Erin Bamer can be reached at [email protected]