As the 2016 presidential election comes to a close and America moves closer and closer to a new leader, the campaigns of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are nearing their end. But they are by no means slowing down. In recent weeks, several accusations of bias in the media have been introduced by Donald Trump and his supporters; in particular, he has accused late night comedy show Saturday Night Live of “rigging [the] election” via Alec Baldwin’s over-the-top impersonation of Trump. As a result, there has been a heated debate about the validity of Trump’s claims.

“The media acts as the gatekeeper. They decide what gets through,” AP U.S. Government teacher Melanie Craven said. “And depending on that [media] company’s bias, you’ll start to see it. But in terms of giving equal airtime, the media has done that. In terms of not giving either candidate [debate] questions ahead of time, there’s no favoritism there.”

This is not the first instance of Trump describing a fixed election. Over the past year, he has made multiple claims against the New York Times, CNN, and, of course, his opponent. For the most part, Trump’s supporters have backed his statements.

“Many major sources publish articles about him that, to an extent, are true, but not entirely true,” senior Michael Bishop said. “There’s always been bias in the media, but I’ve never seen it as prevalent as it is in this election.”

Clinton hasn’t directly addressed these claims. However, her supporters have come to her defense against Trump. Some people believe that there is just as much bias against her in the media; others doubt the existence of media bias at all.

In our modern society, technology has an undeniable effect on America and our political system. Since the first televised presidential debate in 1960, there has been an interest in politics by the mainstream media that has not wavered since. Ultimately, some media outlets have a more liberal skew, while others tend to be more conservative. As long as America has a bipartisan government, we will also have bipartisan media.