In the era of “gotcha” politics, a scandal is sometimes inevitable for many politicians. Many

Many people, myself included look up to individuals in an authoritative role such as; senators, governors, and presidents. We view them as being honest and sincere. They have to be right? They do want to run the country after all. Often our thoughts are “they would never lie to us or hide things from us”, but unfortunately that’s not always the case. One of the biggest political scandals to hit the United States of America was the Watergate scandal involving our very own President Richard Nixon. This scandal caused a lot of American’s to lose trust and hope in the presidency. The scandal received its name from the Watergate apartment and office complex that was located in Washington D.C., where a burglary took place on June 17, 1972 and five men were arrested. It then came to surface that the men’s intentions were to sabotage the opposite political party, when president Nixon was notified of this he order the Central Intelligence Agency to call the FBI to stop with any further investigation, that national security was at stake. President Nixon knew that it would come back to the White House and didn’t want to risk anything, even though he was never involved with the

Public humiliation has changed immensely weighing heavily on the creation of the internet introducing the idea of online cyberbullying as opposed to scaffolding in a town square. As modern society revels in putting people on a public pedestal, the scaffold that Hester Prynne is put onto marks her as no longer a person with feelings, just as a negative figure people look upon to make themselves feel higher. After the news broke of Monica Lewinsky’s scandal, people no longer recognized her as a young adult who makes mistakes, but was treated like a person with no emotions and incapable of being affected by her mistakes. As the story went on throughout the internet, she was only represented as a person through the mistake she made just as Hester Prynne was recognized for the crime she committed. Publicly shaming Hester Prynne and Monica Lewinsky is and was a way for people to make themselves feel better and place themselves higher in society.

Consequently, the political sphere is now being colonised by the media, and politics has begun re-orientating itself to satisfy the logic of media organisations (Meyer, 2002, p. 71). Therefore, the media are active participants in the policymaking process and the ability to stimulate change or maintain the status quo depends on their choice of subject or policy issue and how they frame it. Active investigative reporting attempts to shape policy outcomes, but this does not necessarily mean that it always represents the most successful approach for gaining policy changes (Spitzer, 1993, p. 7). In fact, sometimes passive, straight reporting can have a greater influence on policy choices. When this occurs, media independence is largely bypassed, as the news generated depends solely on the information released (as public relations material) from legitimate news sources. For example, in the United States, White House staff routinely make ‘leaks’ - expressively to influence policy decisions (Davis, 1992, p. 143; Robinson, 2001, p. 948). Robinson noted that journalists regard “leaks… as indispensable to their work” and that they are aware of their use by officials in return for scoops (2001, p. 949).

Coined “mudrakers” by President Theodore Roosevelt, journalists wrote investigative articles exposing social, economic and political scandals. The writers detailed the many horrors of poverty, urban slums, dangerous factory conditions, and even child labor. No one was safe from the “mudrakers”, their articles took aim at the food and insurance industries, prostitution and political bribery and corruption. All which satisfied the American public’s appetite for scandal. Not unlike the sensationalism used by media today to help influence public

In journalism, an ethical dilemma is a complex issue or situation that often involves an emotional and psychological conflict between moral obligations and duties, in which to obey one would transgress the other. Within the media there are many stories that can be deemed an ethical dilemma; some more so than others. One of the most recent and prominent ethical dilemmas was the worldwide coverage surrounding the shooting of two American WBDJ journalists, Alison Parker and Adam Ward. Despite the fact that the shooter filmed the ordeal clearly showing the two slain journalists being shot, news outlets had picked it up and ran with the story, which ultimately went viral in minutes. This essay will analyse and thoroughly examine the reporting

Corruption in campaigns, in the modern sense of candidates being swayed by corporate influence, was a result of the changes brought on by the Industrial and Technological Revolutions. These revolutions created millionaire captains of industry whose immense influence and power held sway over the future of the United States both economically and politically. Elections and campaigning methods drastically changed as technology allowed candidates to reach voters through new kinds of advertising. Gone were the days when being born in a log cabin was the key to door of the Oval Office, the effectiveness of a candidate’s campaign now correlated with the amount of money backing it. The early twentieth century also saw the continuance of the widespread corruption, particularly in the railroad industry, but also in political campaigns, that had plagued the late nineteenth century before it. The significance of this is that, while corruption had no doubt existed prior to this period, the sheer scale of this new corruption and the magnitude of the resulting political scandals was unlike anything America had witnessed before. Muckraking writer Lincoln Steffens, in his book The Shame of the Cities, described the problem of the political sphere of his time by stating: “politics is business. That 's what 's the matter with it. That 's what 's the matter with everything.” (Steffens 2) Something clearly needed to be done to stem the rising corruption and action came as the progressive movement

In the wake of the Watergate scandal, however, that dynamic changed completely. Bob Woodward’s and Carl Berstein’s single-minded pursuit of the real perpetrators of Watergate seemingly unlocked a new, aggressive form of journalism, investigative journalism, which completely change the way media interacted with the government (Streissguth, 2006, p.51). In Media Bias, Tom Streissguth (2006) explains that “before the turn of the twentieth century, political leaders were largely immune from personal attacks” and that “...their private lives and professional crimes held little interest for newspapers editors” (p. 47). One major revelation that the scandal introduced was how interested the public was in politicians’ transgressions. Shortly after Watergate, Congressmen Wilber Mill was involved in a drunken driving accident and after being torn apart by the media, he had to resign. But no politician got the full brunt of private-life attacks as President Bill Clinton, who narrowly escaped being trialed on “perjury and obstruction of justice” (Streissguth, 2006, p.53).

One of the most known scandals in U.S. government history was the bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal. Lewinsky was an intern for the white house who graduated from Lewis and Clark College. After serving as an intern she was hired as an employee for the White House Office of Legislative Affairs. Clinton began a personal relationship with her shortly after she received the job in legislative affairs. Lewinsky told her department co worker, Linda Tripp, who recorded their phone call conversations. The Clinton and Lewinsky scandal was brought to light in 1998. Once the scandal is brought to light, Lewinsky says she had sexual encounters with President

The early 1900s marked the rise of investigative journalism. Articles exposing corruption and greed within the government and businesses were extremely popular among the American people. In Theodore Roosevelt’s speech, “The Man with the Muck-rake,” he explains his thoughts and position on the pros and cons of muckrakers. Roosevelt demonstrates why the job of a muckraker is necessary in society, but also discusses how playing fast and loose with the facts can be an evil act that leads to damaged reputations and false misconducts. Through the use of metaphor, repetition, and enthymeme, he is able to convey to the audience exactly where he stands on the topic of investigative journalism.

The spread of fake news can be detrimental and life altering without checking the validity of sources and facts before passing on such news to others. Pizzagate was a conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 Presidential Election campaign, which alleged there was a child-sex ring taking place and the top Democrats had something to do with it (Pizzagate: A Slice of Fake News). Some believe it all started when John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, had his email account hacked. Tons of emails were leaked and made public. His emails were said to contain coded messages that referred to human trafficking and were also connected to the Comet Ping Pong pizza parlor (“Pizzagate: A Slice of Fake News). James Alefantis is the owner of the Comet Ping Pong and also an acquaintance of Podesta. One email did contain Podesta and Alefantis discussing a fundraiser idea for Hillary Clinton, but no talk happened about the alleged child-sex ring. While this ‘news’ was spreading fast, Alefantis and his forty plus employees were receiving deaths threats, negative tweets on Twitter and Facebook, and facing harassing altercations with strangers. The staff observed social media outlets and “counted five #pizzagate Twitter posts a minute” at one point (Kang). Alefantis himself said that, “From this insane, fabricated conspiracy theory, we’ve come under constant assault.” (Kang) The only people that know what is true in the Pizzagate conspiracy theory are the ones who are

What has changed in the media and political culture? Why is exploitation of sex and politics on front burner of the American agenda? The private matters of the President were once just that — private matters. Now they are published and are accessible to the American public by way of the Starr Report (http://CNN.com/starr.report/)and the mainstream media. The impeachment of the President symbolizes the pinnacle of the integration of sex and politics by the media.

Americans today tend to consider politicians as corrupt and untrustworthy figures. Political corruption can vary from bribery, money laundering, and even drug trafficking. These criminal actions are typically taken by politicians as motive to gain a personal benefit. Politicians have often associate their campaigns with dishonesty. Over the years political campaigns have lied to the public in order to gain votes. Tactics include newspaper manipulation to dishonor a political rival or to obtain support helping their personal agenda. This bad stigma associated with politicians tends to diminish citizens trust. The image depicted in this assignment is intended to target the issue of politician’s dependability with in the public. The image used in this essay was obtained from Brian Montopoli’s article entitled “Lying politicians: A fact of life”. Brian Montopoli is senior political reporter for CBS News website. Montopli’s article was about the lies politicians make in their campaigns in order to gain votes. The image used in Monotopil’s article was utilized to emphasize his argument. Montoplis’s image demonstrates the problematic issue surrounding political officials. The image seemed like it didn’t have a specific target, but once reading title of the article connected with the image it was made clear that the image represents the troublesome issues with politicians in today’s society. The argument being made with the image was that certain political officials might lie to the

Apparently, Weiner used Twitter to send sensitive pictures of himself to a 21-year-old woman from Seattle, falling in public disgrace.

Visualize living in a society where slut-shaming occurs every day and someone's mistake is publicized to the point that everyone knows what happened. Some people would believe this would be referring to the Puritan society that existed during the 1600’s, but unfortunately, this is common situations that appear in today’s society. A “famous” person's error can show up on social media, covers of magazines, and every talk show throughout America. For example, recently the break up of the beloved Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie appeared everywhere in less than a day. The breakup sparked news on twitter, talk shows such as Wendy Williams, and prevailed to be the lead story on every tabloid by the following day. Even though our society did not devise

The article discusses President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky and the press coverage of the scandal. The article begins by painting the former President of the United States of America as a thrill seeker who went to far. The Sunday commentary television programs took a hold of the scandal and began questioning the President’s ability to survive politically. The article also suggests the coverage of President Bill Clinton’s scandal with Monica Lewinsky was unique and a “perfect storm.” The writer says the primary hosts for the major networks were out of town in Havana (for the Pope’s visit to Cuba.) He says they had no choice but to rush back to the United States of America to cover the story. The article also pointed out how