Today, it’s easy to start a media frenzy. Due to the growing accessibility of the Internet through websites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, along with 24/7 access to news on cable networks, information can be spread with ease and efficiency.

But with such a quick and convenient path built from the media to their audience, it’s no surprise that the wrong issues are often covered.

While the media is powerful and influential, recently news outlets have been using their authority to highlight political figures and their publicity stunts, instead of raising awareness on important issues or keeping the public informed about current events.

During election season, the public does need to be promptly informed about what is going on, and what candidates are doing. But on cable channels especially, such programming can be bogged down by pointless candidacy coverage to the detriment of actual political news.

As important as it is to know the people we may potentially be voting for, the media should focus more on candidates’ campaigns instead of over-covering their shenanigans done only to attract attention. Political figures know that the media is drawn to cover these types of stories, which results in many of them milking the media for publicity.

Donald Trump is a perfect example of this.

Trump has been hinting that he may run for president in 2012. He recently told the media that he was planning to make an announcement about his possible presidential run on the final of his NBC television show “The Apprentice.”

Instead of focusing on larger, more pressing issues, the media became obsessed with Trump’s announcement, proving that political figures can use any cheap ploy to earn publicity.

Another example involves former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who went on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight” and claimed he was going to run for office, despite the lack of any official statement prior to the interview. Pawlenty’s campaign staff quickly recanted, saying he would make a formal announcement later this spring about his decision.

Pawlenty knew he hadn’t officially made an announcement that he was going to run for office; his outburst was seemingly just another attempt to gain media attention.

We as an audience are partially to blame for why news media occasionally focuses more on the less crucial things political figures do. Often, the public buys into the hype surrounding candidates, no matter how inappropriate or irrelevant it may be. When audiences constantly tune in to see what crazy antics candidates are up to, they essentially ask for news outlets to cover them to an exhaustive extent.

In some circumstances, news channels that are on air 24/7 may run out of topics and turn to meaningless candidacy coverage to kill time. But coverage of almost anything else would be more fitting on news networks than incidents similar to Trump’s or Pawlenty’s.

Instead of oversaturating audiences with political candidacy coverage that doesn’t benefit them, the media should focus more on informing viewers of lesser-known or more significant issues. Audiences have to demand more from the media in order for an emphasis on news and current events to occur.

The media is a gatekeeper of information. The public will never be informed if there isn’t a balance between frivolous, exhausted issues and actual news. There needs to be better filtering between real news and coverage of political candidate fluff to achieve this balance.