Biased News Coverage as Explained through Kanye West

Kanye West’s presidential run has been in the news recently, despite being utterly unimportant. In fact, the story’s only use is that it illustrates coverage bias: a troubling and persistent failing of the news media. This harmful practice has implications far beyond Kanye.

I am not here to write about Kanye’s presidential run because it should not be important. (The link is to a piece which focuses on Kanye’s struggles with bipolar disorder, also known as the only way this story should have been covered.) However, this story has followed an oft-repeated trajectory to prominence in the media that begins with a celebrity doing something crazy (and in this case the crazy has the added bonus of being tied to the hot political climate). The news media smells the clicks and views and they jump into the craziness as fast as possible. It blows up as social media jumps in and gives the story exponential growth as though it had some strange, existential force. Writers and others news commentators like me latch on leech-like to the topic because that is what we do (I don’t feel too bad because, currently, I have a reach of about 25 people). Even if these articles do not take Kanye seriously, he has now become a force in the presidential race, at least until the coverage dies down and his run must be taken somewhat seriously. Kanye West is no Donald Trump, but it is eerily reminiscent of Trump’s rise to prominence. The media would fixate upon his ridiculous tweets and suddenly Trump would dominate the news cycle. The replication of…