The past year of election coverage has been a bizarre whirlwind of firsts for the American people. It seems as though every day another controversial scandal is brought to light. Everyone is on edge as the election comes to a close, and Americans will have to choose between the two candidates who are considered, according to a Washington Post poll, to be the two most disliked major party candidates of all time.

The media has been a big topic throughout this election. News outlets are relying on the sensational headlines and outrageous stories all of the candidates have brought to the stage to boost their ratings and increase viewership. But what effect does all of this sensationalized news have on voters?

“I think that this whole election has been centered around extreme beliefs, drama, name calling and negativity,” said junior Alexa Menchaca. “I think it’s been making things a lot harder to try and find information on what they will do as president. You have to find the most unbiased source of information, and that makes things even harder because you either hate them or love them. I haven’t found a happy medium in this election.”

Donald Trump has been very vocal about his belief that the media is biased towards Hillary Clinton and Democrats in general. And lately, the mainstream media’s tilt to the left has been almost embarrassingly obvious.

“I do think the media has been very biased towards Clinton and has often painted her in a different way,” junior Bryce Colón said. “Going as far as denying Wikileaks and stuff, even though it can be reliable.”

However, the bias toward liberals doesn’t stop senior Alex Jaensson from using information from both sides of the aisle to build an informed opinion.

“I like to think that I make a majority of my political decisions using logical analysis, statistics based outlook and of course, historical evidence,” Jaensson said. “Even though I’m a registered Republican, I explore just as much liberal-leaning media as I do conservative. This is how I can find the center of our spectrum.”

The only way for Americans to make the best decision for themselves and their country is to do as much research as they can about Trump and Clinton and choose the person they believe to be the best for the future of the world.

“The various platforms and operations of American media has long played a massive role in the relationship between the populous and the politician,” Jaensson said. “I say that anyone who fails to consider the dual sided, and often times paradoxical nature of modern politics, is disallowing themselves from building their own truly liberated opinions.”