Today in class, I learned about the Tracker. A tracker is supposed to follow and record everything from the opposing side or candidate. I knew that presidential candidates are supposed to be careful of what they say especially since everything is being recorded. I didn't come to think that literally "everything" is being recorded. I didn't know that there is a literal job for this. So I did a little bit of research.
I came to find that most of these trackers are young because they are always on the move. They're always going from event to event. The distance between these events can range from being within the state to outside the state. Their main tool is a camera and cameras have evolved over the following years. Camera's have become smaller and makes it easier for trackers to hide their camera.
Tracking can be dangerous as well. Trackers always want to capture the best footage of the opposing side so at events, there usually on the front lines. As we've seen political event footage before, its not always the safest place. People can get emotional about what is being discussed. This can lead to fights and violent actions on the front lines which spread throughout the event. Meanwhile, the tracker is in the middle of this event but while the tracker might not be asking questions nor saying anything, they can be harmed as well.
I learned as well that these trackers are asked to be quiet. Their main goal is just to record everything and to not interact as much. I can somewhat understand this as they don't want to have any influence among the other people and make things weird. They already have a camera right in front of the candidate's face which is weird enough.
I still find this surprising and an interesting job but there are drawbacks like any other job.
https://www.minnpost.com/state-government/2018/09/how-the-tracker-became-strangest-most-important-job-in-campaign-politics/
Yeah I think being a tracker must be a taxing job. It seems stressful to be running around trying to record somebody just on the off chance they might say something controversial or inconsistent. I think that this job though is indicative of the system that has been put into place for elections. The goal has always been tomake the other candidate look like they are the devil, so that people vote for their candidate. But these PACs have so much money that they can pay someone to follow another person around just to possibly catch them saying something bad. These PACs must have an ungodly amount of money for this to occur.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think that being a tracker is an intriguing profession as well. The issues that you brought up also make me wonder the legality of it - does it interfere with any privacy/security rights? Also, I feel like trackers also play a role in how the perception of candidates is skewed by the media, as certain clips could be played and their words can be twisted.
ReplyDeleteBeing a tracker is definitely interesting because there is so much drama involved. I feel like there are definitely issues with this because while learning about this topic, I was uncomfortable with the fact that they could go into any place that the person they were tracking.
ReplyDeleteI think the idea of a concept is increasingly more important as politicians become increasingly more radical in their messages. It's important to the people and the nation that politicians are increasingly accountable for what they're saying and the people deserve to know what the whole message of the political candidate they're voting for is. The transparency of candidates has become more important now than ever, and trackers help maintain that balance.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/09/inside-the-strangest-job-on-the-campaign-trail/455145/