Media Failure to Give Fair Coverage

There is a media blackout of Republican Senator Ron Paul. This is a statement we’ve all heard too much before. I’ve set out to find out 2 things:

• Is this true?
  
• How does it affect his chances of winning?
  

I’ve also set out to find out who else has been left out of the mass coverage. Let us first discuss the first question, as if it’s not true, the second question is irrelevant. I plan to use Fox News to test the validity of this claim.

I will use Fox News’ top story section as my focus. I will also be starting from most current articles and digressing backwards.

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No blackout today on this page! Paul has a top story. It is, of course, about his newsletter. There was one paragraph dedicated to Ron Paul’s denial of knowledge towards the newsletter. More notably, nowhere in that article or any after are mentions of the Austin NAACP President stating that Ron Paul is not a racist. In fact, after searching, I could not find the story an any major news sources. The story, does however, go on to say this:

On Monday, Paul invoked King’s name to aid his fundraising campaign.

In which insinuates that Dr. Paul would write such an article and then try to raise money under Dr. King’s name.
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Six pages of Fox News stories are listed above. I have used Microsoft Word and Excel to chart various aspects of these stories.







After these results were so successful, I decided to run the same test before primaries took place – just to be sure. Here are the results with sources.

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To get more sources, as Fox News only went back to Mid December, I ran past January 3 – which is the date of the Iowa Caucus. I stopped before any others had taken place, however.
Here are the results:







My data gathering techniques are as follows:
• Started at earliest available day for Fox News top stories for politicians
• Copied and pasted all relevant articles into Microsoft Word.
• I counted each time a politician’s name was said through word. If you’d like to verify the procedure, all you must do is open “find and replace”, put the politicians name in the find box and put “&^” in the replace box (without the quotations). The “&^” will replace the politicians name with his/her name. Then click “find all”, and it will find, replace, and count every one for you.
• I hand counted every photograph. I did include any pictures of Bill Clinton as press for Hillary.
• I hand counted every article. I only counted the article as for the politician if his/her name was in the title. Many articles were not about anyone one politician in particular, so those were invalid.

I wasted all of my time doing this research because I feel this race has already been decided. The media picks all of our “top runners” for us, in essence. For those of you who say, “But hey, the media just takes the one who’s on top and reports about him/her.” I disagree.

Think about this: How many people had heard of Mitt Romney before this election? How many of Obama? How many people had heard of Huckabee? Yet, these are our front runners. From the very beginning, these were the people who were displayed all over TV, all over the major online news sources, and all over the radio. Any major media network only covered these big players.

I’m not comfortable knowing the media is picking our president. It’s my opinion, that media should give as fair and balanced coverage of all candidates. What’s that you say? Fox News does because it’s their slogan? Wrong.

What I’m suggesting is the media’s job should consist of:
• Covering all candidates the same amount of time (roughly)
• Not allowing mud-slinging to get in the way of a productive discussion
• Talking more about the candidates ideas than the candidate himself/herself
• Discuss those points and their relativity to the country

I don’t mind Fox News or CNN giving their opinion on abortion. In fact, I’d like to actually hear them discuss real ideas more often. Why is Mitt Romney right about this and Ron Paul wrong about that. That’s how elections should work.

I don’t know if you agree, but I think the evidence above shows pretty clearly that the media impacts the public’s mind on a large scale. I don’t believe the coverage has been fair, and I do believe that hurts this country.

a star for all your hard work

I noticed something a few days ago.
The media blackout of Paul may be
caused by Paul himself.

If you will research Paul's site to see how he spends
his money, you will see that very little of it is spent
on MSM. In other words he doesn't spend near as
much as the other guys.

So if I own a TV Network and I have 4 of them
paying me big bucks to play them and I have
the last one who don't pay me a dime. Well
the little guy don't get air time. Sorry, that's just
business.

So the blackout maybe Ron's own fault. I understand
Paul's conservative nature but remember you gotta
spend the money else you lose the GOP nomination.
It's simple.

If Paul doesn't get the GOP nomination then his chances
of winning are very slim. As I can't remember the last time
an independent or libertarian candidate won a prez election.
So he may be cutting his own throat by not playing the
game.

You can be the greatest guy on earth, but if nobody knows
about you then what good does it do?

While I like the blimp and all, it doesn't do anything to
help his message cuz folks look at it and say "who's that nut?".
A blimp doesn't tell what his policies are and it doesn't
explain the man's ideals. More TV coverage would !!!
You can't win a US Prez Election without it.

Spend the money on Billboards, TV and Radio spots
NOT ON BLIMPS. He should be on every major network
every night in some fashion. He's already won the internet
war, now he's got to win the battle on TV cuz more voters
watch TV than surf the internet for their politics.

If Paul doesn't change his tactics on this nomination
he can kiss the presidency good-bye.

LOL, maybe Ron Paul should hire me to do his
public relations. I'd get his butt elected .....

I saw that too. I think out of 5mil he was still holding 3-4? I was surprised.

*edited to add:

I want to make sure everyone knows that I'm not picking on just Fox News. Their site just happened to be the easiest to navigate, and Ron Paul is a republican.

[edit on 24-1-2008 by Sublime620]

reply to post by SimonSays


Simon, Dr. Paul is not going to get the nomination. He was never going to get the nomination. His positions run contrary to the interests of the Dem/Rep Party Mafia. His only hope is to run as an Independent.

My theory is that he is not spending money now for just that reason. He knows he'll need it later --- in the real race --- so why spend it now for a nomination that he can't possibly get? Look at what the RNC did to him in the LA caucus. And at other RNC sponsored events. They clearly don't want him.

If you want to see Ron Paul watch MSNBC. Several interviews, coverage when he got second in Nevada, so forth. MSNBC seems to be the best media coverage if you like Ron Paul, an actual conservative.*

*I know Republicans how dare a conservative run for office

I spent a lot of time doing that research because I am really bothered by our media's bias. They make a lot of money "informing" us. Unfortunately, I don't think we as people should be paying them for their ideas, but rather, to inform us of facts so that we can formulate ideas.

Instead, they spoon feed us what they want us to know. That is why they spends hours on unimportant topics. Who can remember how long the media spent on Kerry's war medals, or Bush's not showing up to duty?

Who cares! Why not spend time talking about how Kerry is a wimp and Bush is an idiot? Put the facts on the table and let us decide.

At this point, the media is so outrageous that the Daily Show actually uses them as a form of mockery more than the politicians. It's just getting out of hand.

The next time I hear a buzz word get thrown around for months - like cut and run, or "time tables", etc - I'm going to puke. Every news station should not be saying the same thing!!!!!!!

Do they have meetings everyday and discuss exactly what Fox is going to say and CNN will say back? It's unbelievable.

Originally posted by HHH Is King
If you want to see Ron Paul watch MSNBC. Several interviews, coverage when he got second in Nevada, so forth. MSNBC seems to be the best media coverage if you like Ron Paul, an actual conservative.*

*I know Republicans how dare a conservative run for office

MSNBC: Tucker Carlson loves Ron Paul and openly supports him every chance he gets....unfortunately the fix is in and Paul is getting screwed.

[edit on 13-2-2008 by realmatrix]