Lewinsky vs Clinton
Perhaps the biggest presidential scandal since the Nixon administration came to light in January 1998. This is when the now infamous Monica Lewinsky first appeared on our television sets. The American population did not know Ms. Lewinsky until the scandal broke. After the media was informed of the activities between President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky the little known woman was instantaneously the topic of conversation all over the world. The intention of this paper is not to figure out who was right or wrong in the scandal, the reasoning behind it is to show how the mass media shapes and implements our own ideas and opinions about people. Every opinion we have is somehow related to who and what we see around us. The way that these things are portrayed on television or in magazines influences our overall attitude towards them. In many situations we have only the media to rely on when learning about certain events. Sometimes you can check more than one source to get a different opinion, but more times than not the overall image generated by all media platforms of a person or event is very similar. In this sense it is very hard sometimes to get a fair perspective of the occurrences. The views that the American public h
O'Connor, Eileen. "Clinton Aide Appears Before Grand Jury." All Politics: CNN 26 Feb. 1998. 29 March 2000 http:// 207. 25.71.29/ALLPOLITICS/1998/02/26/lewinsky.scandal/ Aiken, Jonathan. "Who Is Monica Lewinsky?" All Politics: CNN 6 Aug. 1998. 30 March 2000 http://207.25.71.29/ ALLPOLITICS/1998/08/06/lewinsky.profile/ Throughout the hearings the media continued to hound Monica. She was mobbed everywhere she went. For twenty years she had led a private life. Now every time she opened her door she was photographed and questioned by hundreds of reporters. Monica's name was mentioned on almost every possible television show in the country. From Jay Leno to David Lettermen the sex jokes about her seemed to be a nightly ritual. All across America households were talking about the sexual scandal in the White House. One place that is near impossible to hide from the public and media is the White House. Bill Clinton has been plagued by scandal since entering the White House in 1992. As the Lewinsky scandal began President Clinton was just recovering from the Whitewater scandal. Before Lewinsky, Clinton was accused of having a sexual relationship with Gennifer Flowers while he was the governor of Arkansas. Clinton denied these reports during his 1992 campaign. However, in a deposition a few years later the president admitted to having an affair with Flowers. Paula Jones who worked for him while he was governor also sued Clinton. Jones disputed that Clinton treated her unfairly after she refused to have a sexual relationship with him. Despite these repeated scandals Mr. Clinton has maintained a fairly supportive reaction from the mainstream media. I strongly feel that Clinton's lack of accountability is due to the fact that most of the scandals that he has been involved in pertain to sexual relationships with women. The male dominated media portrays this in a lighthearted way. On the other hand, the females involved in all of these scandals have been made out to be unjust sluts looking for a big payday. As the scandal neared a conclusion the average person's opinion of Monica Lewinsky continued to be influenced by the way she was being portrayed by the mass media. Most people thought of her as an overweight gold-digger. These ideas about Monica were placed at the front of people's minds by every TV show and magazine article voicing an opinion about her
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Approximate Word count = 1610
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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