POLI: The Mainstream Media Has Picked Your Candidates, Based on Advertising Budgets

Originally posted by MidnightDStroyer

The whole crux of their rulership relies on information...Who has it & who controls where it spreads. Throughout history, the ruling elite used information (& propaganda) against the masses of people that they've ruled over. Their whole linchpin on control has been the illusion that they disperse to the masses while hording the truth for themselves...They simply cannot maintain control any other way & that's why it's an illusion.

Since the advent of public-access internet, now the "common man" has equal footing in the War FOR Information. The "Ruling Elite" are having trouble keeping their advantage in this particular war and they know it...Why else would there be such a big rush to push for tyranny in the once-free USA? Why is China seemingly being groomed to take the US's place as the pre-eminent superpower in production & economy (since the US's capability in those areas has been receding, China's is increasing)?

i totally agree with every thing you have said, however ...

even with the "common mans" unprecedented access to information it does them no good unless they have the capacity to winnow through the truth and the lies.

it seems that the ruling class after deciding that they can no longer control the flow of information decided to go for a reverse strategy "information Overload" so that when those inconvenient peices of truth do slip out to public domain it makes it all the more easier to bury them under a pile of paris hilton/britney spears midnight romps etc.

information is good but i definatley think there is something afoot with how people receive this information, deliberate dumbing down of the population or something like that...

Originally posted by robertnesta
here is that video i think you might have been talking about
brokencrystal.com...

Ah yes thank you... that is indeed the original source of inspiration.. but the original source is YouTube from April. This is what got me thinking about the raw data, what it looks like today, and what the motivations (advertising) might be.

While the burying of Ron Paul (the original point of the Jerry Day video) is concerning, I believe the data comparisons that show the media favoring candidates with deep advertising budgets is the real and highly alarming story.

reply to post by mister.old.school


if ron paul had "actually" raised more money than john mccain at some point, why would there be a conspiracy to not let him spend it on advertising?

i think you disproved your own point?

very interesting post and research!

reply to post by mister.old.school


Awesome avatar! RIP HST.................I think you are correct with the thread as well. CNN has turned into the Obama channel. I don't think it is helping much either. I have posted a bunch of racist crap out of anger about this, and after reading your post and others I give my apology. Well written too. Ciao

Long time lurker, first time poster, and i must say, amazing research and analysis my friend, what an eye opening data set you've caught there. Keep up the mighty fine work mister.old.school.

If the media is picking the candidates via popularity/viewership, that is closer to true democracy than we have ever had.

I much prefer that to rigged elections and media mind control efforts.

I only wish you were correct.

I believe they are manipulating it to be even, to enhance viewership.

Originally posted by Cyberbian
If the media is picking the candidates via popularity/viewership, that is closer to true democracy than we have ever had.

I much prefer that to rigged elections and media mind control efforts.

I only wish you were correct.

I believe they are manipulating it to be even, to enhance viewership.

So you actually believe that someone else hijacking your own free will to choose the best candidate you believe in is a good thing? The hypocrisy in your statement is incredibly striking, you believe elections are rigged but at the same time you choose to ignore the data old school has put forth that shows in transparent terms that the media is choosing who and what to report on that leads to the public choosing to focus more of their attention on that particular person/candidate without evening thinking about, talk about mind control for the masses.

This is worse than a straight rigged election as the media is pulling the wool over your eyes and telling you who and who-not to pay attention too and you don't even know its happening . Its a slap in the face that nobody is willing to acknowledge or is just too ignorant to see.

First of all, I'm very impressed with the work you've put into this and I find your conclusions to be quite logical, for the most part.

The only area which makes me scratch my head a bit is surrounding McCain vs Romney. Mitt Romney had more money at his disposal, had promised commitment of more money to his campaign than McCain did if Romney had gotten the nomination, and was predicted to be a fund raising beast compared to McCain. Do you have any thoughts on whether other driving factors (political bias, for example) may have lead the media to cover McCain more than Romeny given the fact that they actually stood to make less money off advertising from John McCain?

As another poster indicated the source of this "research" is from Jerry Day. While the OP may have crossed the t's and dotted the i's I would hardly consider it an investigative piece yet alone groundbreaking. Most here realize that the MSM has to spoon feed the average knuckle dragger due to their obvious ignorance and general stupidity.

brill

Originally posted by burdman30ott6
The only area which makes me scratch my head a bit is surrounding McCain vs Romney. Mitt Romney had more money at his disposal, had promised commitment of more money to his campaign than McCain did if Romney had gotten the nomination, and was predicted to be a fund raising beast compared to McCain. Do you have any thoughts on whether other driving factors (political bias, for example) may have lead the media to cover McCain more than Romeny given the fact that they actually stood to make less money off advertising from John McCain?

It has been widely speculated that there wasn't broad confidence in his campaign because most of his cash was his own --
Romney Drops Out of GOP Race

In the end, Romney, a businessman, likely decided that the path to win the nomination was too narrow to justify further expenditures of his own money. According to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission that covered campaign contributions and expenditures through the end of 2007, Romney had donated $37.5 million of his own money to the contest. He likely spent considerably more so far this year. His net worth has been estimated at between $250 million and $500 million.

Political "machines" have always been skeptical and uneasy with candidates that use too much of their own money. Indeed, looking at Google Trends, we see something interesting.

Despite winning Michigan in mid-January, the follow-up edge in news coverage frequency goes to McCain. Pperhaps this is why --
NPR.ORG

Since the New Year, McCain has won Republican primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. His campaign says that its fundraising for the month of January alone has surpassed the $7 million it raised in the last three months of 2007.

McCain's main rival for the GOP nomination, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, has been buttressing his campaign funds with personal wealth. Romney held a high-profile fundraising event after finishing second in New Hampshire's primary Jan. 8. It netted only $1.5 million in funds to be spent on the primaries.

Originally posted by brill
As another poster indicated the source of this "research" is from Jerry Day

The inspiration, yes. But I believe Day (a videographer, not experience conspiracy analyst) was primarily presenting a lament for Ron Paul (which cheapens the data in my mind), and not looking deep enough into the root cause of the broader issue.

I believe the topic author. I'm an online content trafficker for the one of the big network news organizations, and many of us on the content traffic team have been beginning to think of the same general ideas. Back in the period from December to February, we constantly saw good broadcast material on less popular candidates be rejected for web in favor of big stories on the front running candidates. Our manager once brought this up in a weekly status meeting and was told the web content decisions about which candidates to cover is coming from as "high up" as it gets. In another meeting, a senior editor for the web let slip something like "Stories on Kucinich don't make any money, run Clinton or Obama." For those that don't know, the content traffic department is responsible for getting the stories and assets from the broadcast side of the organization into the online content management system. We are in the perfect position to see which stories make it to online and which get killed by senior editors.

Here's one example of how the Big Media works:

video.google.com...

reply to post by mister.old.school


Excellent thread mister.old.school

I don't think the fact that the media grossly affects personal decision making is something in any way contentious, this is something we've known about for a long time. What I do find disturbing from these data however is that this control is being extended into the internet.

A previous poster (Anonymous) raised the concern over causality, I agree that these trends clearly indicate a causal relationship between google search queries and internet media coverage, but one very important piece of information which these trends leave out, and cannot account for, is the exact purpose of these queries which have, quite clearly, resulted from media atention.

Everytime I log onto the net there are a few routine stops I need to make before going abouts my particular business, and a few of those stops include a bunch of high-profile media sites, such as BBC news. I normally go through the headlines picking out interesting things, and as soon as I find something which sounds in any way dubious or in need of closer inspection, I will do a bit of digging. Obviously this involves Googling things.

Now what does that say about my search queries on Google Trends? Surely you cannot say that merely because people are doing searches on McCain as a result of press coverage they have therefore made any positive associations with the object of the coverage.

You would probably respond to this by pointing out that in the case of Ron Paul it is irrelevant whether associations are positive or not, people merely sropped him from their political radars and assumed him to be irrelevant.

This brings me to my next point. You claim that the high volumes of RP search queries precluding the mass coverage turning point of the big three, during which RP queries petered out, is not the result of a mere 'blogger bubble', but was directly the result of being drowned out by other news coverage.

I don't think this correlation is so clear. I agree that internet usage is tremendous among adult populations in the US, but that does not mean that RP search queries are going to be distributed evenly among the entire demographic. A certain population of RP suporters, or merely interested parties, may have gone through a period of high excitement over the prospect of this candidate who seemingly did not fit the mold. People within this group of internet users could have been spreading links on social networking sites, blogs etc. creating a brief period of investigation into this fellow. A period of investigation which was resolved after the investigation hd been completed. People for whatever may just have lost interest independent of lack of media attention.


One statistic which would be very interesting to see is to what extent internet media coverage corresponds to coverage of orthodox media such as newspapers and television.

Originally posted by Demandred
even with the "common mans" unprecedented access to information it does them no good unless they have the capacity to winnow through the truth and the lies.

Consider this also: The "old-money" ruling elite families have passed on certain knowledge through their generations for thousands of years, teaching their benefit of experience as the decades marched on.

The new generation of "commoners" are the first to grow up with internet access on a wide scale...The 2 generations before that had to contend with increasingly-manipulated television broadcasts. Before that, there was only radio & newspapers. The "common man" is a relative newcomer to the War FOR Information, having only been on the receiving end for hundreds of years.

The "common man" had only this past generation to learn from scratch the tricks to finding & start understanding the scope of power that comes with information that they find on the internet. This is a part of the "information overload" syndrome...The commoners also need time to digest, contemplate & develop experience with using information. Yet, the experience that took the Ruling Elite Families thousands of years to develop, the commoners are swiftly gaining ground within just a matter of one generation...I'd guess that one or two more generations will see the commoners regain control over governments & big corporate conglomerates.

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
if ron paul had "actually" raised more money than john mccain at some point, why would there be a conspiracy to not let him spend it on advertising?

Ron Paul's platform was completely contrary to the "normal" campaign procedures...Dr. Paul was creating an awareness in the general public as to how corrupted the system actually is. He was "rocking the boat," "making waves" & generally undermining the root of the past several generations-worth of corruption, by bringing it to public attention. So, of course they had to "blacklist" him in the mainstream media...He was getting dangerously close to the actual truth, which has nothing to do with "money for advertising."

Dr. Paul was also not accepting "corporate" money & relying almost entirely on public donations...As the case with Mitt Romney (mentioned above), the PTB are leery about candidates that aren't tangled up with Big Corps. The government thrives & relies very heavily on corporate money & politicians have to follow through with their own self-interests linked with the corps that they already invest in...For example, the Bush family is deep into Big Oil interests so they promise the Oil Corps access to the new oil sources in the Middle East: Big Oil Corps profit, the Bush family keeps collecting dividends. Follow the money trail...MSM wants big bucks on advertising the candidates & Politicians want to keep their corporate connections happy & their own wallets full.

I can tell you for a fact that the polls that gather the info and the statistics that the media reports are fixed to show that the general public favor whomever "They" want us to support. It is human nature to want to fit in, to be like the masses. The sheople with no true convictions or beliefs of their own will vote as they are lead to vote. to think and believe what they are told to think. Sad but true

How do I know this? I am one of those spawn from hell that calls you and interrupts your dinner with some stupid political poll, then ignores your answer if it doesn't go along with what "They" want you to believe are the real statistic or truth.

I know, sometimes it's hard to live with myself knowing this, but it feeds my family.....

You seem to be suggesting that Paris Hilton should be President.

Originally posted by ApathyIsAnEpidemic

Originally posted by Cyberbian
If the media is picking the candidates via popularity/viewership, that is closer to true democracy than we have ever had.

I much prefer that to rigged elections and media mind control efforts.

I only wish you were correct.

I believe they are manipulating it to be even, to enhance viewership.

So you actually believe that someone else hijacking your own free will to choose the best candidate you believe in is a good thing? The hypocrisy in your statement is incredibly striking, you believe elections are rigged but at the same time you choose to ignore the data old school has put forth that shows in transparent terms that the media is choosing who and what to report on that leads to the public choosing to focus more of their attention on that particular person/candidate without evening thinking about, talk about mind control for the masses.

This is worse than a straight rigged election as the media is pulling the wool over your eyes and telling you who and who-not to pay attention too and you don't even know its happening . Its a slap in the face that nobody is willing to acknowledge or is just too ignorant to see.

You misunderstand me completely. If Oldschool's thesis is correct, we have at our hands the ability to wield the closest thing to true Democracy that has ever existed. By a conscious effort of will we can maintain focus upon what we care for, driving the media to follow, and therefore driving the resultant reality.

If there is truly a causal relationship involved, we can focus upon generating hits only for that which we support. Ignoring the mainstream media's attention diverting guidance. And force the media and the resultant reality into synch with us or be starved out. No back room campaign could fight that.

What you are missing is that the public is driving this engine, but being steered by the media.

Override the steering committee and we take over contol of the reality. The votes are instantaneous and realtime with every web hit.

I applaud Oldschools insights, but I question his conclusions.
I hope he is correct!
If he is correct, we have a tool for seizing control. If he is incorrect we are stuck with the status quo, of being steered.

Free your mind from being driven, to a perspective of empowered subversion and you will celebrate with me if this a true model of the media engine's inner workings.



I propose a test!
If we can get enough ATS'ers to participate, Oldschool could pick a relatively insubstantial subject, we could spin out web hits on the subject pumping the statistics, and watch if the media follows, Oldschool can do his analysis and workup a determination and perhaps methodology for a more effective dominance / submission mind control scenario.

If we can learn to pump small subjects, affecting social outcomes, we could build a following of contributors.

This may actually be what happened in the case of Ron Paul. Although not with the insight that the web hits would drive the other media. In that scenario the other media realizing they were being driven away from their sponsors will would have reacted to counter the cultural trend.

The question is what happens when the media cannot control the cultural trend?

[edit on 27-8-2008 by Cyberbian]

They wasted their ad dollar on me because we threw out the TV about six years ago, and I've read enough on ATS and other reality sites to know that politicians are bought and paid for ten times over, and that our President was picked for us already several years ago. The elections are held in closed sessions, by men of extrememe power (wealth).

The only thing that really saddens me are the sheeple with their false sense of hope, change, something, anything "New". Quick example...

A black employee of mine mentioned how cool and "real" Obama is because they showed him playing basket ball in the ghetto, or hood, whatever, doesn't matter. I told him all politicians are liars, bought, crooked, etc.,(at least if they win! LOL!! and I think he was a little offended, until I printed some things off the internet about how FILTHY RICH Obama was, and how he was ANYTHING other than "real".

One down, but many more to go ;-) Enlighten one person at a time! I don't care who anyone votes for, I just want them to know "who and what(corporations)" they are REALLY voting for.

Me? I wanted Hilary! Because I would get a kick everytime we heard..."And now, the First Man, Bill Clinton!" Dang!!!!

This should be front page news... but off coarse the news would never implicate themselves... very solid job old school. I hope a major newspaper picks this up.