By: Briana McDonald

There’s something special about seeing the entire country up in arms about issues affecting different populations, even if it does only happen every four years. While divisive and stress-inducing, presidential elections also seem to bring our country together for a few months in order to make change in our communities. The excitement can be intoxicating.

For some news outlets, though, the excitement can be a bit too intoxicating. Lately, going to any news source with a preference for non-political news is an unsuccessful attempt. Click on over to the homepage of CNN, and over half of the trending stories are about who has the lead in a state or whose newly-hacked emails are circulating.

News outlets, especially websites like CNN, thrive on traffic. The more views they can get on their website, the more people are likely to subscribe, and the more revenue they are likely to create. The news and media, in general, control what we see of nearly every subject. Politics, gender relations, and terrorism are all hot topics right now – issues raised by the media in the face of the upcoming election – and so news channels want to capitalize on these topics by covering every aspect possible, even if they’ve already been covered by other media sources.

Add this to the fact that 90% of media is owned by the same six companies, and you have an epidemic on your hands.Those six companies, which include Disney, General Electric, and News Corp., cover the same news from the same points of view. Much of variety and truth is sacrificed for revenue; the candidate who contributes the most money or newsworthy actions gets the most screentime.