Analysis | How media outlets shape voter fraud perception

After a tumultuous presidential election, media outlets face questions about how repeated voter fraud coverage may have impacted the American public. WikiCommons

The world watched a mob of insurrectionists overwhelm law enforcement and storm the Capitol building, attempting to halt Congress from counting and certifying the official electoral votes, only six days into 2021. Although their goal of overturning the presidential election results failed, the situation ended violently, with five people dead and many Americans left aghast at the sight of the chaos. 

In the lead-up to and aftermath of the election, former President Donald Trump’s administration made repeated claims of mass voter fraud to sow doubt in the election’s integrity. Moments before the insurrection, Trump rallied his followers alongside attorney Rudy Giuliani as well as former Chapman law professor John Eastman at a “Stop the Steal” speech, declaring, “All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats, which is what they’re doing.”

The belief that the election was “stolen” was amplified daily by right-wing media outlets such as One America News Network (OAN), Newsmax and conservative pundits such as Tucker Carlson. These messages left many pondering the impact conservative media outlets had on misleading people to believe the claim that the election was fraudulent and could potentially be overturned by the Supreme Court or by former Vice President Mike Pence. This claim was pushed out even though 61 of 62 Trump-related election lawsuits failed in court under Democratic, Republican and even Trump-appointed judges.

“I don’t believe that there was a direct call for insurrection on the part of larger conservative media organizations, but they certainly did damage by perpetuating and amplifying the lie and the falsehoods about the election results,” said Suzanne Lysak, a Chapman broadcast journalism professor. “The people who were plotting to take over the Capitol were encouraged by the coverage they saw and read in conservative media, that’s for sure.”

While many in conservative media did take part in disseminating misinformation about the election to their audience, journalists such as Bret Baier and Chris Wallace of Fox News did not feed into narrative that the election’s results be overturned, and pressed Republicans like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) who claimed otherwise. Similarly, many members of the Republican Party such as Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) have pushed back against their fellow members’ unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud.

With President Trump out of office and without a social media presence, conservative media outlets may have to restructure the way they operate. However, they will likely still have a platform. Andrea Molle, a Chapman political science professor, explained that people watch outlets like Fox News to confirm their own biases.

“(Fox News) is selling a product … This is infotainment,” Molle said. “People look at Fox News not to get information, but to get confirmation. It's radically different.”

Mona Shadia, a Chapman political science professor, similarly told The Panther that news outlets such as Fox News and OAN simply weren’t sticking to the facts. 

“They're doing the opposite of everything journalism stands for, and what journalism should be about,” Shadia said. “It creates a lot of division.” 

Varying reports from politically contrasting news networks and publications have given birth to the term “fake news.” Journalists across all media outlets have had to adapt to being labeled as an enemy by the former president. Public trust in the mass media is low, as a 2020 Gallup poll demonstrated six in 10 Americans have little to no trust in the media’s ability to fairly and accurately report the news. 

“The Trump administration and the former president were very successful with that campaign,” Lysak said. “It is going to take some time to rebuild trust. There have been issues about trust with the media that predated President Trump. It's been going on for some time, but it was made 10 times worse.”

One of the main promises President Biden has made is to unite the country. However, for many, that task seems increasingly difficult considering the political polarization of the country — and major media’s contribution to that polarization.

“What we saw on Jan. 6 was a symptom of what's been brewing underneath for many, many years,” Shadia said. “We have 75 million people who voted for Trump, and those people are not going to go away … The best thing that the Biden administration can do is follow up on the promises they made.”