WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Media “narratives” have become more dominant in this presidential campaign, distorting the reality of what is actually going on by propagating fictions that then reach mythical proportions.

These story lines have become more important than ever in a news cycle that is constantly updated on a 24/7 basis as a way for journalists and editors to present a misleadingly coherent picture of some very messy events.

Worse, the narratives often seem guided by a bias for or against specific candidates that further warps the picture the public is getting.

This has been most obvious in the bias of the establishment press against the insurgent candidacies of Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination and Donald Trump for the Republican.

In Sanders’s case, the tactic has been to largely ignore his campaign and the tens of thousands drawn to his rallies and to marginalize his importance by insisting on how little chance he has of winning.

Trump, for his part, has made it easy for the press to focus on his more outlandish proposals and character flaws rather than on the meat of his message regarding jobs, trade and the role of government — the message that is resonating with large swaths of the voting public that feels disenfranchised and left behind by the political elite.

By contrast, much of the establishment press has been all in for Hillary Clinton, and the myth-making power of the media narrative has been on full display in promoting her candidacy.

There is the meme, for instance, that the former first lady is “the best qualified presidential candidate ever.”

President Barack Obama was the latest to take up this theme in his gushing endorsement last week, praising in particular “the courage, the compassion and the heart” he has seen in her, even though these qualities have been less visible to the public.

He also endorsed her “judgment,” the very attribute that comes under heavy criticism from Trump, who cites what he sees as her mistaken judgments, from going to war against Iraq to toppling Qaddafi in Libya.

In this media narrative, it is primarily Clinton’s resumé that is waved around as proof of how qualified she is.

Being the nation’s first lady, of course, was never before seen as a qualification for elected office, until President Bill Clinton spoke of how lucky we were getting two (presidents?) for the price of one as he made fitful efforts to make her a kind of co-president. At least until she had to abandon her heavy-handed efforts at health-care reform and lower her profile.

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Clinton went on to serve eight years as a senator from New York, winning re-election along the way; to run a nearly successful campaign for the Democratic nomination in 2008; and to serve four years as secretary of state before her apparent success this year in winning the nomination.

Quite a resumé. But as Jeff Jacoby pointed out in the Boston Globe earlier this year, if a resumé was qualification for president, then James Buchanan, the 15th president, would rival Hillary Clinton as the best qualified ever.

Buchanan, Jacoby noted, was a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature, was elected five times to the U.S. House of Representatives, was ambassador to Russia, went on to serve 10 years as senator from Pennsylvania, resigning in 1845 to become secretary of state. He then turned down a seat on the Supreme Court and went on to be U.S. ambassador to Britain.

“When Buchanan was elected president in 1856, it doubtless seemed to many that a candidate with such glittering political credentials was destined for brilliance in the White House,” Jacoby wrote. “But Buchanan failed miserably as president. He was hesitant to lead, paralyzed by the secession crisis, and unwilling to hear dissenting viewpoints.”

Despite all Clinton’s years in the public eye, it has been difficult even for Clinton’s supporters to find examples of true leadership. Instead, we hear mostly about how she was at the elbow of two sitting presidents and flew a million miles as secretary of state.

Other myths about Clinton abound. For instance, that her success in winning three-quarters of the African American vote in the Democratic primaries is a mandate from that community for her presidency.

As Carl Beijer pointed out in Jacobin, however, this can hardly be the case since nearly nine-tenths of eligible African American voters have not in fact voted for Clinton.

His analysis found that, even though some 4 million African Americans voted for her in the primaries and against Sanders, another 29 million voting-age black Americans did neither.

As Beijer noted, this may say more about the barriers to voting in the primaries than about what black American voters want, but it would be mistaken to think Clinton has a mandate on the basis of that vote.

What is indubitably true is that Clinton is the first woman to clinch the presidential nomination of a major party.

But it would be another myth to think that Clinton is the only conceivable person capable of that achievement.

There is every reason to think that, had Clinton not pre-empted the field with her determination to run again despite her 2008 loss, candidates like Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts or Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York would have entered the contest and had a good chance of winning the nomination.

There are unquestionably many voters, women and men, who, all things being equal, would vote for a woman for president in order to break that particular glass ceiling.

But all things are not equal and voters, at least according to the polls, remain skeptical about Clinton as president.

If she wants to win this election, she will have to go beyond the myth-making of the media narratives and actually show voters that she has the leadership and heart to be president.