NP Rank:
Ron Paul: Total Victory, Yet Censorship Continues
Following last week's Republican Presidential debate in California, I posted results of MSNBC's online polling, which, while not scientific, allowed just one vote per IP address and had thousands of respondents. The polling showed a clear winner of the debate--Texas Libertarian Representiative Ron Paul. I wondered if the media would take notice. Apparently, they haven't.
I was forwarded this piece on the media's lack of coverage of Paul. I am a Democrat, and I'm not going to start going gung-ho for Ron Paul, but the media's lack of coverage of Paul is an affront to our democracy, regardless of whether you're a Democrat, a Republican, a Libertarian, or none of the above.
I am not sure why Ron Paul is on the mainstream media's blacklist. As Paul is a Libertarian, I would imagine he has no interest in regulating big media or its corporate sponsors. His breaking of the party mold would seem to be a good story to cover, perhaps worthy of covering even if his post-debate poll numbers didn't justify covering him.
...this is a chicken and egg scenario - if the media routinely ignore so-called marginal candidates then they are never going to attain the exposure of a Giuliani or a Romney, thus the media bias becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Now, The Washington Post has an editorial complaining that candidates such as Ron Paul and Mike Gravel clutter up the debate stage. I can't say that Gravel won a lot of respect in his debate, but I know his ratings were still higher than Chris Dodd. Clearly, the media has a script for how they'd like the races to play out, and the likes of Ron Paul have not been invited to audition.




Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (3)
at 20:26 on May 9th, 2007
Good stuff!
May I suggest that you make the headline so it fits in the space?
Maybe: Total Victory, Yet Censorship Continues.
at 06:15 on May 10th, 2007
Good stuff! Thanks so much for covering this topic. I understand if John/Jane Q. Public wants to run for election, but guy isn't just another $45,000/year American. I'm not sure he has a chance at winning -but neither does Ralph Nader, yet he usually gets press coverage.
What ever happened to unbiased news? Oh, that's right! Corporate controlled news is rare...I keep forgetting.
at 13:34 on May 11th, 2007
Update: Looks like Yahoo just changed their coverage to include ron Paul now!