In college I took a media class and we were discussing the ethics of media . I brought up that it would be easy for the media to sway the election by advertising heavily bias news . Everyone bought that argument because it was pretty straight forward . Then I asked if anyone has actually seen President Obama , in person . I asked if they themselves have any proof he ' s even real . They all scoffed at the idea of Obama not being real but I asked them to play along . I followed up with anyone ever having . Even to the White House or even a national convention . Everyone said no . I pointed out that the media is inherently trusted . Non of us have any proof or evidence to the workings of democracy but trust the media to ensure that it ' s working . You don ' t even have to think about it . When CNN or even Fox News tells you something happened it ' s real , no questions asked . This is a great responsibility and democracy wouldn ' t work without it . It ' s why we have the first amendment . Fake news is a violation of our trust and if we can trust the media the fundamental foundation of democracy becomes compromised . When a president denounces the purity of the media he ' s trying to further the decay of trust and thus attack our first amendment .