With Nov. 8 less than a week away, we find ourselves hesitantly inching toward it. Instead of students being excited to participate, a lot of us are nervous for the results. Our favorite news sources remain saturated with reminders of the date.

But more often than not, people find themselves disgusted at the mainstream media and their coverage of a topic. A certain candidate wasn’t elected? This issue wasn’t talked about? These questions can be answered with answers like, “It’s the media’s fault” and “The media’s trying to swing the election.”

This is because it’s easy to blame the media.

The media itself is wrongfully seen as something that’s corrupt, one-sided, or looking to make money, even an overarching scapegoat.

Journalists have an ethical duty to seek the truth and report unbiased facts, to create transparency between institutions and people. Reporters always have to put patriotism, political biases and sentiment aside while on the job. News is not meant to be a place for bias or for trying to sway readers to your side.

This election, no doubt, has been difficult to report on. We have tough issues on the table that people feel strongly about, such as gun control, education, abortion and security. Both presidential candidates have widely different views, which means their respective supporters are going to butt heads.

Additionally, the presidential candidates have histories and issues that make the same supporters raise eyebrows. These issues even make members of that party not proud of who their party is putting forward to run. This leads to people not wanting to discuss politics, or giving up on voting in the election altogether.

This becomes a challenge when handfuls of people being interviewed aren’t proud of the state of their political party and don’t want to be published. Reporters then get tied into a hard place where they can’t cover a specific side or issue without looking biased, though they’re aiming for equal representation of all sides and parties.

During a highly controversial time, it’s easy to blame the media for negative situations. But in reality, the media is just a stage for things to be heard exactly as they are said.