At a Trump rally in El Paso where the president was campaigning for his wall, a BBC cameraman, Ron Skeans, was violently shoved and cursed at by a man in a MAGA hat. The man has not yet been identified but was lead away by security. Several other news agencies report that they had been shoved by the man while in the camera pen, but he was still able to get to Skeans before security stepped in.

While a shove is not dangerous and overly damaging, it is the first in a long line of attacks against the press by Trump supporters. Many other reports state that they have been shoved and harassed at similar rallies, while one even says they were ‘spat at’.  This is all too common an event in recent years.

A poll conducted by Gallup found that 1,440 Americans believe that “62% of the news they see on television, read in newspapers, and hear on the radio is biased.” From that same group, they believe that around 80% of the news they see on social media is biased.

As a teen writer who is considering a future in journalism, this is incredibly worrying. Seeing people attack reporters for simply doing their jobs is frightening. Yes, sometimes media is incredibly biased and jumps on a story that they should have waited to report on. But that is no reason to label the whole as ‘fake’. Call out the liars, the fakes, the bad apples, both on the left and the right, but do not attack the whole.

The distrust of media can only be solved by an attempt from both sides. Journalists have to be as unbiased as they can and write good articles, not just hit pieces. The public has to look for sides that report the facts, down the middle, and not on their sides. Bias will always exist, but we can work together to help minimize it. If a place with heavy bias starts losing its viewers to a place with factual reporting, it will be forced to adapt and get rid of its bias.