The Choice 2024: Harris vs. Trump

Frontline has a well-earned reputation of excellence. However, as with PBS overall, this episode tries too hard to present it's two lead subjects as relatively equal. Producers give FAR TOO MUCH time (= credibility) to criminals & thugs of the Trump campaign and administration, with no acknowledgement of their particular histories of crimes & lies. Therefore, Trump is relatively normalized, instead of presenting accurately & honestly his profound abnormality in the history of the Presidency. Similarly, they show clips of Fox News and NewsMax, and other non-news sources of supposed commentary as though they are legitimate news sources, with no clarification of their known biases and failings.

It's too bad that so much time and attention is wasted, asking viewers to see and hear this trash as reasonable and factual history.

We'd like to see Frontline, and PBS overall, as trustworthy resources for honest presentation, analysis and discussion of factual information. Someone apparently directed producers to blunt the edges, round the corners, and dull the blades of the truth of Trump, before, during and after his Presidency. There's only one reason to do that, and that would be fear of offending wealthy donors and GOP politicians who may (or may not) have influence over PBS public funding. Sad.

This program is almost interesting, in seeing and hearing more of Vice President Harris' journey to this moment. But, even this was thin and cartoon-like. Sad. It could have been so much better.

I am not American so don't have a vested interest in American politics but I have noticed an undoubtable bias and actual hysteria especially by the American mainstream media painting Donald Trump as something he isn't. I say this because I looked up the claims the mainstream media push and I discovered they actually lie and twist what was actually said by Donald Trump and they push false narratives.

When I noticed this show on tv I decided to watch for interest sake to see if the same one sided narrative was pushed here and it definitely was. They had KAMALAS friends defend her and paint a positive picture while the people talking about Trump were clearly not his friends or close associates who had nothing positive to say which I found incredibly biased. The show is produced to appear as a documentary but it's a hatchet job clearly. Even Kamala's association with an elderly man who helped her career was downplayed and manipulated to appear not to have had any influence in her achieving the roles she obtained when clearly her relationship with him, a man called Brown, gave her the opportunity because he weilded power and influence.

It's a shame shows and the media don't have integrity these days and those who don't follow Kamala and Trump, which I don't, might be influenced in their opinions of these two people based on this biased one sided program. I watched this and then did some independent research of my own to ascertain if what they stated was the truth and I found so much was carefully crafted to show Kamala as competent and successful while Trump was a flawed man with no redeeming qualities.. and after seeing Kamala in several interviews running for president she certainly is not competent or overly intelligent.

I hope integrity returns especially with the media and documentary makers because we are going downhill fast.

I've watched this episode of Frontline before and yes, I've voted for Donald J Trump and JD Vance in the 2024 Presidential election and at first I thought voting for him and JD Vance was a good idea and a smart move and I was not the only one who voted for Trump and Vance. My mom voted for them. And last month I began to have mixed feelings and feelings of regret for voting for Trump and JD Vance. And the reason why I have feelings of regret is because I'm a intellectual disabled young man who lives in a section 8 apartment and I have food stamp benefits and Trump doesn't care about people with disabilities and doesn't care about people who have a low income. He only cares about wealthy Americans. And I told my mom that I have feelings of regret and she agrees with me. And if I voted for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and they won the election, I think the country would be more safe and secure. But now that Trump is President, I have to hope for the best for my future and my nephew's future and the future for America and remain hopeful and optimistic.

As a European I like to follow the US elections a bit from the side. So one of our local TV channels broadcasted this episode and I decided this could help me understand the US politics a bit more.

I was expecting a bit more negative depiction of Trump and a slightly more optimistic story of Harris.

But is was hard to believe how extreme this was. It was like about 10 minutes about one and than switch to the other back and forth. But it was day and night.

The story of Trump is bad and dark. Black and white images, sad and serious faces, threatening music in the background. Almost only people who are against him are interviewed. Then we switch to Harris en suddenly the music lights up! We see colorful images of smiling people. Best friends praising and adoring her. For me it was jaw dropping.

Even the cut off quote of 'both sides' of Charlottesville, that has been debunked years ago, was repeated. I always thought that Frontline was some un prejudiced program?

I'm really aghast and wondering how people in the US watch this. Looking forward to some more reviews.

Did not take many minutes to see the truth in this case. As an European citizen I've been following US news almost daily for some years now. I try to follow the narratives from both sides of the polarized US society.

As hjansen-43693 said in one review here, it's absurd how blatantly biased this is. Even a hardcore anti-Trumpetist should see this. Though I'm still worried that many people do not see any bias or any problems with media productions like this at all.

No level playground is offered for both candidates so that the viewer could form his/her own opinions based on the presented facts, situations and viewpoints of as equal value as possible. F.ex. Harris's best friends get screen time to praise Harris while in the mirroring scenes Trump's critics present Trump scandals. The two candidates are treated completely differently, other with positive bias, other with negative.

It's sad that nowadays media can present things without any attempt to objectivity, have a misleading agenda and have zero accountability. Even when they present facts, they choose what facts to present to keep the narrative intact. This seems to be a global pervasive issue. Even in Finland the official national media company (Yle) seems to have only one view point to present. It's like the media is on a crusade to tell us what to think, what is right and what is wrong and even tries to prevent citizens from making other kinds of conclusions than the ones offered by the media. Anyway, it is clear we live in a media carbage heap full of poor quality information. End of rant :)