"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