Let me start you off with a quote.
"The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers... [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper."
Thomas Jefferson to G. K. van Hogendorp, Oct. 13, 1785. (*) ME 5:181, Papers 8:632
It has recently come out that certain news outfits have not been giving the 2008 presidential primary candidates fair and equal coverage. Only the media-labeled front-runners get the good coverage. In fact, when a non-front-runner does well in the polls the media does not elevate that person to front-runner status they instead scratch their heads and tell the reader that there must have been a problem with the poll.
With the Democratic presidential primary debate last week on CNN we found that the front-runner candidates sucked up most of the on-air time. Even the host, Wolf Blitzer, sucked up more time than many of the candidates.
In that debate Obama got a full 16:00 minutes of talk time. Followed by Clinton with 14:26 and Blitzer (the moderator) came in third with 13:24! Gravel came in dead last with 5:37 minutes of talk time! What's up with that? Why did Obama get almost three times as much talk time as Gravel?
It got even worse with the Republican debate. Blitzer took the top spot this time with 19:34 minutes of talk time! McCain came in second with 12:44 followed by Rudy at 12:35 and Romney with 11:04! Dead last was Thompson with a mere 4:21!
This is the primary process. How can we, the people, properly pick a candidate if the media elites do not give us equal access? Isn't that what the media is constantly talking about, how they want access to tell the people what is going on? All the access in the world does not help us, the people, if it is not allowed to trickle down.
I want to hear what all of the candidates have to say. I here enough about Rudy McRomney and Hillary Hussein Edwards on the radio as it is. The voices I do not hear are the ones that are being given the least amount of time in the debates. This needs to stop!
Please, take the time to contact these big media companies and ask them, no tell them that you want to hear from all of the candidates equally.
Take a look at this MSNBC Poll from the Republican debate. Ron Paul wins all of the positive questions!
How about this article posted on Yahoo news? It mentions 10 candidates but goes on to list 9 of them by name. Can you guess who was not mentioned?
How about this CNN Debate Scorecard? After you do the drag-and-drop you will see who the real winner is. The only ones Ron Paul did not win were the ones for "Snappy Dresser" and "Disappointing Performance".
Let me leave you with a quote:
The right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon ... has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right.
James Madison, Virginia Resolutions, December 21, 1798
-- Danny Mc Guire
If Ron Paul doesn’t win the primary election, it will be because of both the media and the Republican base of brown-nosers.
Win or lose ALL of the candidates should have equal time in the debates. It’s bad enough that the media flat out ignores some of the candidates while it gives front page coverage to even the smallest thing a “front-runner” does.
I suggest each candidate gets a chess clock. When they speak the time ticks away. Once their time on the clock runs out they can no longer speak.
As long as all candidates get the same amount of clock time it should be fair.
Since when did “fair” ever mean anything? If things were fair, Ross Perot would have won quite a few years ago.
Or it could mean that the online media doesn’t represent the majority of people’s views either. Look, as biased as the traditional media, the online media is just as bad. Gravel and Paul have become internet “causes” of sorts and it’s not the trendy thing to support them online.
Besides, if “the Republican base” causes him to lose the primary, that means that he’s not who they want to represent them. The “Republican base” is exactly who is supposed to decide who the Republican nominee is!
Heard about this while listening to Stephanie Miller on my commute. Maybe it’s just that Wolf Blitzer has such a cool name, not that he had anything worth while to say.
[...] thanks to Danny McGuirre at http://www.hmtk.com/archives/bias-in-the-media.html for first writing about [...]
This is an interesting piece. Inspired by your work, I also wrote about this topic from a different angle. I made sure to give you credit for your efforts. Here is the link: http://forthardknox.com/?p=91.
You make some good points about “casting” in your piece, I enjoyed reading it. Didn’t the media pick G.W. Bush as the winner way before the primaries even started?
I read through some of your other posts as well and I have to say that you have some good content and a narrow focus on your blog. Unlike here where Steve likes to mix up Pokemon with politics!
I agree with you about wanting to hear more from the other candidates, however, the online media has just as much bias if not more so. Ron Paul has been dubbed the internet’s candidate and it is now for whatever reason cool to jump on the Ron Paul bandwagon so of course any online poll will be dominated by Paul. If you look at the political section of Digg.com or Reddit or several of the other sites, you’ll notice a hugely disproportionate number of stories on Paul than any other candidate. So, while equal coverage would be nice to see, it’s not going to happen any time soon.
nothing’s fair today…everyone has their own ways to fulfill their selfish desires…
I can’t figure out for the life of me just what the republican party is thinking about. It should be obvious to them by now, as it is to everyone else, that their only chance of winning in ‘08 is for Dr. Ron Paul to win the primary. He’s the only candidate on either ticket with anything truly genuine or inspiring to say on the “real” issues. Hell, he’s also the only candidate with the guts to address what the “real” issues are. Besides all that, people everywhere are fed up with the current rhederick of the republican party. Marginalizing Ron Paul is the worst move the republican party could make right now and if they’re refusing to smarten up and realize this now then they’ve already lost election before the first balet is even cast.