Every media outlet in the country seemed to be on 24/7 non-stop campaign watch which made this election cycle far from mundane.

Constant rumors, leaks and accusations about the candidates spread like wildfire as the general public has not second guessed pointing out the cons in each candidates. While the media certainly has not tried to slow the massive hype train this election was, most of the blame should be put on the candidate’s actions.

While the candidates may not have planned for the all-out cyberwar they started, they certainly have not done anything to stop it. Republican president-elect Donald Trump took many hours out of his campaign to make crude comments about his opponent Hillary Clinton.

CNN reported at the Oct. 20 Catholic Charity Al Smith Dinner that Trump said, “I was not really sure if Hillary was going to be here tonight because, I guess, you didn’t send her invitation by email. Or maybe you did, and she just found out about it through the wonder of WikiLeaks.”

We’ve learned so much from WikiLeaks. For example, Hillary believes that it is vital to deceive the people by having one public policy and a totally different policy in private.”

When the audience booed at that line, Trump said, “That’s OK, I don’t know who they’re angry at, Hillary, you or I. For example, here she is tonight, in public, pretending not to hate Catholics.”

Twitter users reacted to the speech by making jokes like “The #AlSmithDinner is proof Conservatives can’t write jokes, only nominate them.” (@TeaPainUSA).

If the candidates had not made countless controversial statements, the media would not have anything they could blow out of proportion. When a presidential candidate says, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you.They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists,” the media has without a doubt every right to react to these racist, insensitive comments.

“I can’t think of anything inappropriate the media has done. They focus a great deal on the errors of the candidates but that has been the case during an election for a long time,” social studies teacher Elizabeth Seabreeze said.

If the candidates wanted to avoid turning themselves into laughingstocks, they should have tried harder to avoid negative settings where they have been exposed over and over.

To avoid wild elections in the future, both the candidates and then media outlets need to improve. The media can try not to overreact to every minute detail, while the candidates need to better prepare themselves to handle each other verbal attacks. These two candidates being abnormally disliked definitely contributed to the firestorm, and further elections will hopefully revert back to normal. As long as Kanye 2020 does not get too big, we may have a respectful election cycle once again.