Press / Media
" At what point will the media proprietors' fear of damage to their brands outweight their fear of Ron Paul's message? "
Ron Paul broke through at the first Republican debate. His simple, direct statement of opinions - pull out of Iraq, reduce government spending, stop creating inflation by debasing the dollar and reduce America's assumed role of international policeman - cut through the usual servings of political spin and motherhood statements. Of course Ron Paul has been pushing these views for over 30 years, including a previous run for President as Libertarian party candidate in 1988 where he polled a miserable 0.47%. Through his career Paul has largely been ignored by the mainstream media or dismissed as a crank; a favoured way of dealing with people who rock the boat and question the power of established elites. After 30 years in public life the Republican debate was the first opportunity most people had to hear his views. And a lot of people liked what they heard.
While the online momentum for Ron Paul's candidacy has grown exponentially you wouldn't know it if you were relying solely on the traditional media for information. Despite a series of fascinating events including all time record fundraising, spontaneous development of campaign groups and support from a range of worthy individuals the traditonal media have largely ignored Ron Paul and his policies. Whether this is evidence of a "conspiracy" to silence the Paul campaign in favour of other candidates we can't be sure, though to any impartial observer it does appear that Paul has been deliberately ignored by certain segments of the media to his obvious detriment in polling, name recognition and the ability to introduce his message of personal liberty at the debates.
To our mind the media's reaction to Ron Paul adds another layer of interest to the phenomenon. If Ron Paul is being deliberately ignored, and therefore a high level of collusion exists between political parties and media, what other issues are siimilarly manipulated? What implications does the manipulation of news have for the democratic process? if nothing else it shows that we must be on guard against growing political desire to censure or filter the internet as events like this prove it allows a diversity of news and comment not permitted by the traditional media cartels.
Through the evolution of the Paul campaign the bias of the traditional media has reached a point where many people for the first time in the lives have questioned the media's credibility and the assumptions they have held about free speech and democracy. At what point will the media proprietors' fear of damage to their brands outweight their fear of Ron Paul's message?