Sep 22, 2007
With the Fall at our doorstep, and the lecture I'm giving to my
class at Fordham University about the media mistreatment of Ron
Paul just a week away, I thought I'd share with you a little list I
put together, which ranks the five major TV news networks on their
coverage of Ron Paul as well as other presidential candidates these
past six months.
Since I'm not omniscient, I may have missed some network errors and
abuses. All corrections and additions are welcome in the comment
section.
1. CNN: in first place. They've done nothing wrong that I know of,
and get kudos for the YouTube CNN debate a few months ago, in which
questions came from people who submitted videos to YouTube, rather
than so-called experts in the media. CNN decided which questions to
air, but this is still a
real breakthrough in the democratization of media.
2. MSNBC has in general done a fine job in its reporting of Ron
Paul and the other campaigns. MSNBC commentators Tucker Carlson and
Pat Buchanan have been public and explicit in their support of Ron
Paul. But MSNBC got off to a bit off a rough start. Keith Olbermann
and Chris Matthews, discussing the candidates' positions on the war
after the debate of May 4, neglected to mention that Ron Paul has been
systematically against the war. They both improved their reporting
considerably, shortly thereafter.
3. CBS has done nothing wrong in its coverage of the current
campaigns, either, as far as I know. But I put CBS in third place
because of its continuing
graceless treatment of Dan Rather, who was forced out of CBS
after courageously reporting about George Bush's military past, in
the election campaign of 2004.
4. Now we take a sharp turn downward with Fox News.
Hannity and Colmes denigrated Ron Paul's first place finish in
the Fox phone-in poll conducted after the last Republican
Presidential debate on Fox - the two claimed that Ron Paul's
supporters were multiple-dialing. Not only was there no evidence
for this, it turns out a second call from the same phone resulted
in a text reply that the vote wouldn't count. O'Reilly, to his
credit, did have Ron Paul on his show. But to O'Reilly's discredit,
he barely gave Ron Paul a chance to get a word in edgewise.
5. ABC is in the cellar. Worse than Fox, ABC
failed to mention on at least one occasion that Ron Paul came
in first in its post-debate poll. It
removed comments from Ron Paul supporters on its online board,
and then proceeded to shut it down. ABC also
showed a lone Ron Paul supporter before the Iowa caucus, in
contrast to big crowds for Romney, when in fact Ron Paul had big
crowds of supporters, too. Then there was
Mark Levin, in ABC's radio line-up, who called upon his
listeners to call up Ron Paul headquarters with advice that Ron
Paul couldn't win. And, just for good measure, ABC spread some its
abuse around, and
cropped Dennis Kucinich out of a photo Democratic
contenders.
The good news for Fox and ABC is that the election campaigns are
continuing, and they can change their ways. Actually, Fox has been
worse than ABC in the past month, and that may be a sign that ABC
is finally seeing the error of its ways.
I'd like to see all five major news networks report the election
campaigns truthfully. The American people require no less.
I'll keep you posted.
FOX news is the best only in their episodes. CNN News will be better.
Thanks, Dave - I\\\'ll check that out. Paul
Ron Paul Supporters
Supporting the Constitution of the United States is first and foremost in the mind of Keith Sprankle. What’s truly different from Ron Paul philosophy are Keith’s plans to not only support our Constitution, but to rebuild America both structurally and morally.
America is about pride and we must earn the respect from the rest of the world by showing we can use the Republican model to take care of our country and every man, woman and child in the great Nation. Part of that responsibility is with your leaders to show the world we do have a plan and not just a dream. We have something to offer the rest of humanity in terms of our ingenuity and decisiveness when it comes to solving our energy problems, fixing our Health-Care system and providing security for the world.
Ron Paul brings a strong message, but Keith completes this message in the modern terms of today’s world. We must re-earn the respect of the world right now with this election and the only way to do that is to elect Keith Sprankle who brings the foundations of change coupled with the foundations of our Constitution.
Join with us in building an unstoppable force in the election today by committing just 20 minutes a day to spreading the word of change in politics by supporting Keith Sprankle as the next President of these United States!
- Keith Sprankle 10/21/2007 9:40 PM (PST)
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