For my writing class this semester we were tasked with taking a past piece of writing and experimenting with it, molding it into something that looks completely different. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do but from the beginning I was set on the topic of misinformation in politics today. I had briefly considered this issue in a short essay a year ago, highlighting the use of false information on social media sites to influence the Presidential election. I also considered the potential dangers of a world lacking control over a clear truth. I struggled with that essay and the overall process felt rushed, but a year later, the issue was still on the top of my mind as the most important issue for the future of politics. With the opportunity to explore misinformation for a whole semester in front of me, I wasn’t going to pass it up. From the mammoth of a topic which is misinformation, I explored different subtopics constructing each in a different genre. This final project looks entirely different from my initial project, and consequently it’s worth analyzing how I ended up writing about the historical relationship between Presidents and the press.

            Throughout the high school years, kids are supposed to begin to take more of an interest in politics as they transition to adulthood. For me, the more I learned and read about the current political scene, the more I lacked interest for it. This appears to be a common sentiment many share. For me personally, however, this disinterest did not sprout from a sense of boredom or confusion, but from a sense of frustration. There isn’t a clear answer to the majority of issues debated intensely in politics, and the idea that someone could be so certain that their idea or opinion was the correct and righteous one above all other ideas and opinions honestly made uncomfortable. I believe the world is too complex for that, and consequently get frustrated at stern ideologies refusing to bend to compromise. Although this frustration continues today, my interest in politics has grown, in a way mirroring the rise of President Trump. The 2016 Presidential Race was quite an introduction to politics for high school students all across the country beginning to pay more attention, myself included. There were polarizing figures, dramatic accusations, surprising results, all leading to a giant question of what’s next?

            Well, for myself, it was reading about the use of misinformation on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, spreading fake news about candidates and issues. The more I read and digested this information, the more fear washed over me. I had never previously considered the long-term, concrete consequences of these sites and, really, the internet as a whole, on the information people receive and accept. That information decides their truth, and if Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four taught me anything, the truth matters greatly. This was the concept and question driving my work the entire semester—who determines the truth— and in light of recent events, I realized there was no better or larger scale than to reflect that question onto then the Presidency of the United States.

            I arrived at that conclusion through a series of experiments. The first was a timeline of misinformation, highlighting times over the last five centuries when lies were purposefully spread to achieve some political goal. The next, a misdirect essay, designed to place the reader into a social experiment. I gathered different political opinions about gun control presenting the essay as a summary of those opinions, then revealing to the reader within each of those opinions there existed misinformation they probably consumed without doubt. The final experiment was a public service announcement defending the importance of the press in reporting the news to the American people. Although not one of these experiments landed the way I initially hoped, my knowledge of misinformation and all its interacting parts—the institutions its employed from and the forms it takes—drastically increased, expanding my interpretation of the scope of the topic. Somewhere in my frustration at just missing the mark with these experiments, I knew I was circling something powerful. What I realized was I had been examining the issue of misinformation as a completely one-sided affair, mainly focusing on the missteps and falsities of news organizations. When the Trump-Acosta feud erupted, my outlook changed, my eyes opening up to the continuous conflict between the Presidency and the press that covers him. This issue was no longer just about fake news, it was about the role of truth in a functioning democracy; who decides it, who influences it, and how it interacts with our society. It was important, relevant, and disturbingly unexplored.

            The process of writing this final article forced me to immerse myself in politics. It was tiring and frustrating to swim around in divisive opinions, and demanded my full attention as I tried to distinguish what was accurate, what was relevant, and what was useful. It was the most ambitious writing project I’ve set out upon and facing that challenge made me a stronger writer. In the past, my struggle with writing stemmed from the creative act of making something from nothing. I always had ideas for what I wanted to say, certain moments I wanted to create for the reader, but translating those from my mind to the page has always been extremely difficult. The amount of research necessary for a project like this forced me to gather information, synthesize it all, take away conclusions, and then think diligently about how I was going to convey my ideas.

          This project also forced me to deal with my own political views, and since they are still being shaped, this process wasn’t clear or easy. I learned things about past presidents that they shy away from in history class. I read completely opposite opinions on the same man, both providing evidence and data for their claims. My main priority in crafting this historical analysis was being as objective as possible, exposing each President’s shortcomings with regard to the press. I realized how difficult that can be when the topic of choice is literally politics and a selection of men both adored and despised. I just scratch the surface of these relationships and apologize for any wrong representations of events or people. Reflecting now, I don’t think I was able to completely escape bias or exaggeration. And that’s okay, because the inclination to be biased and exaggerate is what the initial project and misinformation revolved around in the first place, and my own susceptibility to the issue adds another layer to the final piece.

            Since this article tries to tackle a complex issue and put that issue into the context of right now, my view on what I was writing was constantly be shaped and changed, both by current events, and by my research. Along the way I realized a few things. I didn’t want it to appear like an attack on these men. Instead, I wanted to make it clear that they were human, subject to failures at their work and willing to stretch their power to better control the story coming out of their White House. They were doing what was natural—trying to make the toughest job in the world a little bit easier. This does not mean we should forgive these actions nor does it mean we should allow these acts against the press to fly unchallenged. The American people depend on the press to hold our leaders accountable and consequently I’ve realized the clash is necessary. It’s healthy and protective and gets ugly sometimes, like in the Acosta video, but if one side were to ease up, the relationship loses balance. In a world as complex and complicated and frustrating as the world we live in today, it is difficult to find the clear, obvious truth. So many misunderstandings and so much anger collides because of this helpless search, but here's a truth: we can't stop looking.