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Is Ron Paul Getting the Coverage He Deserves? [NO]
Nick
Gillespie | August 17, 2011
Reason staffers
Mike Riggs and Katherine Mangu-Ward
were on the television yesterday to discuss the media’s response to what might be
called "The Riddle
of Ron Paul": Why do major newspapers,
broadcast shows, and cable
news outlets seem hell-bent on ignoring a 12-term
GOP congressman who came
in a tight second in the Iowa Straw
Poll? Indeed, the results of that hokey quadrennial exercise in corn-dog politics was used to talk up Michelle Bachmann’s legitimacy. Yet, none of that seemed to rub off on Rep. Paul (R-Texas), who seems to be getting
the
Voldemort treatment from just about everyone with the
exception of Jon Stewart.
Hartmann:
Ron Paul…He Who Shall
Not Be Named
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_e...p;v=T15dvpnwPJo
Politico reports that
target="_blank" Ron Paul remains media poison.
Ron Paul remains media poison
By: Roger Simon
August 15, 2011 03:17 PM EDT
I admit I do not fully understand
target="_blank" Ron Paul and his beliefs. But I do understand when a guy gets
shafted, and Ron Paul just got shafted.
On Saturday, the Ames Straw Poll
was conducted in Iowa amid huge media interest and scrutiny. …
… “close”
does not fully describe Paul’s
second-place finish. Paul lost to Bachmann by nine-tenths of one percentage
point, or 152 votes out of 16,892 cast.
If it had been an election, such
a result would almost certainly have triggered a recount. It was not an election, however, and that is my
point. Straw polls
are supposed to tell us, like
a straw tossed into the air, which way
the wind is blowing.
And
any fair assessment of Ames, therefore,
would have said
the winds of the Republican Party are blowing toward both Bachmann and Paul.
… why didn’t Paul
get the same credit for his organizational abilities as
Bachmann did for hers?
I am far from a Libertarian. I believe big government is swell as long as it does big
things to help the common
good. But after Ames, it was as if Paul had been sentenced to the Phantom Zone.
The Moderate
Voice reports that target="_blank" the
American media is delinquent.
MEDIA: Mainstream-Embracing
Disappointingly Ignorant Advocates
Posted by ROBIN KOERNER
Aug 16th, 2011
My first choice for the
“A” word in the title
was not “Advocates,”
but I settled on it because it is
more conducive to intelligent discussion than the word I wanted to use.
There
is nothing more tiresome than the imputation of
intent where none exists [ie: conspiracy]. …
And
yet, and yet… the extraordinary
lack of coverage of Ron
Paul following his statistical tie for first place
in Iowa is a remarkable story in itself — worthy of the best efforts of serious
investigative journalists.
Here are a couple of headlines that I saw today, a couple of days after the Iowa Straw Poll, which are very
typical of the type of coverage
the event has generated.
Pawlenty exits GOP race; leaves Romney, Perry, Bachmann to duke
it out (CS Monitor)
target="_blank" Bachmann, Perry Shake Up GOP Field
(FOX)
Dr.
Paul, who everyone knows represents something new and culturally challenging — two criteria for newsworthiness
— is conspicuous by his absence.
As another example, in
the story, “The post-Ames, post-Pawlenty GOP field“,
from CNN, the only reference in the whole article
to the man who gained almost as many votes as
Bachmann, was the line,
Pawlenty finished
a distant third in the poll,
behind Bachmann and Texas Rep.
Ron Paul, who finished within one percentage point of each other.
The
remarkably strong and
suggestive showing of Dr. Paul does
not, apparently, warrant even
the use of his name as
the subject of a sentence in an article that
purports to describe the
post-Pawlenty field. And this is despite
the fact that he near-as-damn-it tied
with a woman who couldn’t put any clear water between her and him even though
the poll was held in her home-state.
THE
DERELICTION OF SERVICE BY THE MEDIA IS TRULY REMARKABLE. I don’t
know how or why it has
come about but it demands
investigation — as an extraordinary incident of either
massive group-think or institutional corruption.
It is hard to believe that journalists are being
instructed from their corporate overlords to misrepresent a hugely important political event and trend, but IT IS ALSO HARD TO CREDIT THE IDEA THAT
AN ENTIRE PROFESSION OF THOUSANDS OF FREE-THINKING INDIVIDUALS HAVE DECIDED
TO IGNORE THE ELEPHANT (read libertarian
doctor), IN THE ROOM — especially
when it is
obvious to anyone with an internet connection or
the ability to read that Dr Paul’s success in Iowa is not just a story — BUT IS REALLY THE ONLY
STORY HERE.
“Standard Republican congresswoman wins in her home state” is not a story.
“Humble
peace-loving congressman who has often stood almost alone for 30 years against the greatest changes wrought upon this country in the areas of war
and economics, who has been regarded as a marginal character
for most of this time,
and whose views completely subvert the prevailing Left vs. Right, two-party paradigm of the most powerful country in the
world”: that IS a story.
I happen to believe that if Ron Paul wins the GOP nomination,
he is
likely to beat Obama to the presidency. But the evident
failure of the media en masse to cover the Ron Paul phenomenon post-Ames
does not depend on my being correct. Even if I am mistaken, what has already
been achieved is itself important per se as reflective
of a profound shift in the country’s
political consciousness, and even
identity.
Consequently, the shift that Dr. Paul represents and was confirmed to be real in Ames SHOULD BE FRONT-PAGE NEWS even
if Obama, Bachmann, Romney, or anyone else for that matter, ends up as our next president.
If so-called political journalists were doing their job, they would point out that the Ron Paul revolution
phenomenon is all the
more newsworthy because
IT HAS BEEN ACHIEVED ALMOST ENTIRELY BY GRASSROOTS ACTIVITY: armies
of Americans are making endorsement videos, unpaid and unsolicited;
designers and artists are making
logos, posters and signs; webmasters are setting up
websites to promote their candidate; neighborhood organizers are bringing people together; students are setting
up campus organizations all over the country to promote the ideas of this one candidate.
Moreover, many of these
people, united in a rising
political cause, used to be political opponents — target="_blank" some from the left, others from the right — and are as demographically diverse as any political movement you can find. Now,
however, they share a determination to expend their own resources — time and
money — out of a simple belief in, and indeed passion for, the message that
their candidate espouses.
Some of them have been consistently doing it for years and are finally hitting pay dirt.
This is not only extraordinary
in American politics. IT IS ALMOST UNIQUE ON A
GLOBAL SCALE. What exactly
are the media for if not to reflect back to us — let alone help us to understand
— currents of such depth
and import in our own
nation?
Collectively then, as a national institution,
the
American media, are delinquent. Forget the old saw of reporters’ presenting the first draft of history: the large corporate
media are currently presenting
only a lack of intellectual curiosity and integrity.
It is not worthy of a nation with the standing, the history or the spirit of the United States.
In a broader historical
perspective, it may turn out that the only story of our times that will be
as politically and culturally
important to the future of the USA as the ignored rise of Dr. Paul and the liberty movement,
is the story about how a multi-billion dollar media industry that pretends to serve a nation by providing
basic, relevant information can continue to avoid doing so.
And that latter story — which should
scare people as much as the former story should inspire them — brings me, at last, to my chosen word
in the title — “advocates”.
… whether intentional
or not, the media as an institution is clearly advocating a status quo in which a tired two-party system dominates a nation BY AGREEING ON MOST THINGS WHILE
APPEARING TO OPPOSE EACH OTHER.
It is shameful. It is sad. It is
pathetic. If you are a journalist who is freely generating
this black-is-white
nonsense, then you have
no journalistic integrity. If you
are peddling this informational snake-oil because you are under pressure to do so within the corporation for which
you work, then you have no spine – and what’s
more, you have a moral duty to inform your readers
or listeners that that is what
is going on.
To
all Mainstream-Embracing Disappointingly
Ignorant Advocates of the status
quo, my hope is that America continues along its restorative
path to freedom in spite
of you.
My reaction: The extraordinary
lack of coverage of Ron
Paul following his statistical tie for first place
in Iowa is incredible.
1) Major newspapers, broadcast
shows, and cable news outlets
seem hell-bent on ignoring a 12-term GOP congressman
who came in a tight second
in the Iowa Straw Poll.
2) Any fair assessment of Ames Straw Poll would have said the winds of the
Republican Party are blowing toward
both Bachmann and Paul.
3) Dr Paul’s success
in Iowa is not just a
story, but is really
the only story here.
4) The shift that Dr. Paul represents
which was confirmed to be real in Ames should be front-page news.
5) If Ron Paul wins the GOP nomination, he is likely
to beat Obama to the presidency.
Conclusion:
This is another example of what I wrote about in target="_blank" *****The
ESF’s Wurlitzer (Propaganda Machine) Is Slowly Dying*****. Controlling the
executive branch is absolutely key to continuing the dollar Ponzi scheme. That is why Ron Paul’s
presidential candidacy represents a fatal threat which much be
stopped, even if it means exposing
the fact that both “liberal” and
“conservative” media are controlled by
the same source. target="_blank" The
ESF is wrecking the credibility (and usefulness) of
its propaganda machine in
its bid to stop the Ron
Paul campaign. This desperation
is another sign of how near the end is.
Eric de Carbonnel
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