Figures prove Texan Congressman given least news coverage out of all Republican candidates
Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com Monday, October 17, 2011
A new study by Pew Research Center confirms that the establishment is terrified of Ron Paul’s presidential campaign gaining momentum – figures show that despite his top tier showing in national polls, the Texan Congressman has received the least media coverage out of all the Republican candidates.
“Ron Paul loyalists have been vindicated. After months of observations that the mainstream media was ignoring the libertarian standard-bearer, a new study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism shows just that: the Texas Congressman, who has consistently polled in the high single digits — Real Clear Politics’s aggregate poll currently has him at 8 percent — has received the least overall coverage of any candidate. From May 2 to October 9, Paul appeared as the “primary newsmaker in only 2% of all election stories,” reports the Atlantic Wire’s John Hudson.
The figures, compiled from a list of 52 of the top mainstream news sources encompassing newspapers, cable news, and broadcast television, show that even the likes of Tom Pawlenty, who quit his candidacy last month due to lack of support, and John Huntsman, have received significantly more mainstream press coverage than Paul.
It’s not just news coverage where Paul has been deliberately sidelined. A scientific study undertaken by the University of Minnesota also shows that Paul has been given the least speaking time out of all the candidates during the Republican debates so far. A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Indeed, Mitt Romney has enjoyed more than double the amount of time afforded to Ron Paul over the course of the last three debates.
Of course, this only confirms what we already knew after CNN talking heads admitted there was a media policy to deliberately ignore Ron Paul, even after he placed second in the influential Ames straw poll back in August.
These figures really bring to the fore how the establishment is terrified of Ron Paul’s campaign gaining traction. Paul routinely wins straw polls and habitually places second, third or fourth in national polls. He is a top tier candidate despite being almost completely ignored by the mainstream media. Imagine what his numbers would be if he was given merely double the amount of attention he currently receives, which still would barely touch that afforded to the likes of Romney or Perry.
If Ron Paul was allowed to compete on a level playing field, he would trounce all the other candidates and go on to defeat Obama by a landslide. Polls show that Paul would already narrowly defeat Obama in a hypothetical run-off despite the media campaign to blacklist him.
These statistics once again highlight how grass roots alternative media organizations need to pick up the baton and preach Ron Paul’s message of liberty to the general public, because they’re not even going to be informed of Ron Paul’s existence by the corporate media, never mind what his campaign stands for.
The NYPD’s comfy relationship with the CIA is back in the news again. In August it was reported that the spook agency was working with the cops in New York to spy on Muslims. The CIA and the NYPD began working together a few months after the 9/11 attacks.
In August, the corporate media covered the the CIA’s surveillance of Muslims in America. The widespread practice, however, is not limited to Muslims.
NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said at the time that the chief of the NYPD’s intelligence division is led by David Cohen, a CIA veteran prior to coming to the NYPD in 2002. He said the department’s counter-intelligence program foiled 13 terror plots since September 11, 2001, through a collaboration with the FBI and other federal agencies.
The FBI routinely entraps witless patsies and then claims it prevented terrorist attacks.
Although the CIA’s charter supposedly bars it from operating domestically, it began doing so before the ink was dry on the National Security Act of 1947. The Patriot Act established a direct link between law enforcement and the CIA.
The CIA now works directly with the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in New York, which has hundreds of NYPD detectives assigned to it. JTTF is comprised of the FBI and other federal agencies , including the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Transportation Security Administration, and the U.S. Secret Service and state and local law enforcement.
In order to understand what the CIA hopes to accomplish, check out what it did with its Operation CHAOS, one of the largest and most pervasive domestic surveillance programs in the history of the United States.
The JTTF has collaborated with police departments around the country since at least the mid-1990s, well before the so-called war on terror.
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
The FBI likes to portray itself as the federal agency that tracks down bank robbers and kidnappers, but in fact it specializes in persecuting people outside the acceptable political parameters established by the government. This became obvious last year when the FBI and the JTTF raided the homes of antiwar activists in Minneapolis and Chicago. Documents reveal the FBI considers antiwar activists as terrorists and have equated nonviolent protest with domestic terrorism.
Earlier this year, the Portland City Council voted to allow closer integration of its cops and the JTTF despite fierce community opposition. The council made its decision after the FBI staged the arrest of Somali-American Mohamed Osman Mohamud on terrorism charges and showboated it before an appreciative corporate media.
In New York and elsewhere around the country, the FBI, JTTF — and the above mentioned medley of agencies and bloated bureaucracies – along with local cops and the CIA work together in undercover operations against not only Muslims, but political activists.
We can now expect illegal CIA operations against Americans to become militarized under the direction of David Petraeus, the new CIA director.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the CIA has “no business or authority in domestic spying, or in advising the NYPD how to conduct local surveillance,” but her complaint will not stop the ongoing consolation of federal and local cops increasingly under the direction of the CIA, an outlaw agency known for overthrowing countries and assassinating pesky opponents in foreign lands.
The FBI and the CIA are putting the finishing touches on a political surveillance police sate apparatus. It is being sold under the phony rubric of terrorism prevention, never mind terrorists the government offers as examples are by and large clueless patsies, drunks and drug addicts, the mentally ill and loudmouthed miscreants who make the mistake of talking about al-Qaeda or agreeing with agents provocateurs to bomb airports and other targets despite the fact they are mostly incapable of doing so.
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In case you are not yet aware, OfCom, Britain’s Office of Communications, decided to take Press TV off air in the UK this week. The significance of this move by the state regulator should not be underestimated. The battle for free speech is definitely on.
With this move, the state apparatus has all but declared war on a foreign network’s ability to broadcast a political perspective that differs from the consensus reality line. Note that the state, particularly in the UK, will spend millions per year in order to enforce a rolling agenda of talking points. In the US will also spend billions to ensure the same thing.
Today London’s Telegraph newspaper reported:
“The foreign arm of the Iranian state broadcaster is to pulled off the British airwaves after media regulator revoked its broadcasting license.
Press TV, the channel which acts as the overseas mouthpiece of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government, has been told by Ofcom that it breached broadcasting rules with its interview of a journalist who was imprisioned in an Iranian jail and forced to read from a prepared script.
The ruling comes after a year-long investigation by Ofcom into the claims made by Maziar Bahari, a journalist for Newsweek, the US magazine, who was filmed by Press TV while imprisioned in Tehran for nearly four months. He was arrested while covering the 2009 Iranian Presidential elections.”
With this move, a new front in the infowars has truly opened up. It’s not just about winning over minds and getting the info out. It is now about being able to get that info out there. It’s about preserving the free speech platform where we can receive and deliver all that valuable information. And we are up against the state.
Over the last eight years, I’ve involved myself in the battle- the one which Alex Jones and others have referred to as the Information War. The first step was getting informed, and the second step was getting involved by creating content which, up to this point, has relied heavily on the internet’s free speech platform. From this open platform, even an individual could broadcast locally, regionally and globally, disseminating information that would otherwise not get to these audiences.
Active internet news hounds like this writer, in search of alternative views that differ from the corporate mainstream media conglomerates could not believe their eyes when Press TV, a 24-hour English language global news network launched online in January 2007, followed by the TV launch later. It seemed to be the only place in the UK where one could go to catch a completely different, fresh take on domestic and world events. For sure, it had an edge.
Ofcom’s legal reasons for pulled down the network was an administrative one, citing a breach in the broadcasting code and some administrative problems with Press TV’s application as the reason.
Press TV’s response today was at the UK ban was predictably defiant:
“The British media regulator’s decision is considered to be an abuse of the UK media law and the result of mounting pressure on the organization by certain members of the royal family and government.
As an alternative international media outlet, Press TV took pains to break the mainstream media’s total silence on the violations of international law and human rights committed by the UK government at home and abroad.
The fact that Press TV is Iranian owned and operated, has drawn heavy fire from certain establishment and government critics who accuse it of being ‘bias’ towards an Iranian agenda. If only that were a prerequisite for taking a media network off the air. If it were, you could expect that Britain’s state broadcaster, the BBC, would have its license revoked overnight in foreign countries around the world.
certainly, the main reason for the west’s aggressive attitude toward Press TV is that, according to the US State Department, Iran is meant to be an enemy of the United States, Europe and Israel. If you’ve been paying attention, the war drum against Iran has not stopped beating since Dick Cheney and John Bolton began pounding it early in 2004.
If a war with Iran is on the cards, eliminating Press TV in the UK and the US will be a top priority for governments in those countries, as Press TV will be broadcasting a different view than the BBC or CNN. This would be very problematic for the establishment.
The US and Britain, who built their empires on the powerful illusion of media, simply cannot accept that a country like Iran could win-over English speaking audiences, doing a better job reporting the news than the likes of CNN or the BBC. Worse yet, they cannot accept anything other than an anti-Iranian perspective portrayed through the TV lens.
Chris Bambery, a political analyst in London explains the possible motivation behind Britain’s move:
“To me Press TV has a much wider range of debate than it is available on BBC, with views of people who support their Republican Party in the United States, who support free market policies in this country. I have debated with those people and I think Press TV has done an startling job here and that is precisely why, I believe, it is being taken off because as the reporter just said, we know there has been pressure from a number of lobbies in this country, from the Foreign Office and inside the BBC to take Press TV off the air.”
Will the state be moving in on another foreign network next?
Following the strength of Press TV, in August 2007 arrived Russia Today (RT), another 24 hr global news network that offered an incredibly diverse band of news and opinion, not seen before on TV. Before long, RT became the second most-watched foreign news channel in the United States, after the BBC, and also set a TV News Channel record after exceeding a view count on YouTube of half a billion.
Like Press TV, the staff at RT remained committed to delivering an even more challenging slate of programming, with it’s strap-line, “RT: question more.” It has kept its overwhelmingly anti-war, anti-globalist and pro-humanity agenda, and is generally resistant to the usual propaganda lines which are streamlined through the Murdoch media press, routinely churned out of the Whitehall, Tel Aviv, White House and US State Department.
I found myself becoming RT’s number one fan, so I did not hesitate when I was invited by them to contribute on air. I didn’t know anyone in the organisation, had no contacts and no introductions. They simply liked my writing and were willing to give me a shot on live TV. To date, no editor at RT has ever censored or attempted to censor anything I have said, or even ask me to alter my opinion on any subject.
This type of network practice is very, very rare in today’s corporate media matrix and for this reason, interested audiences around the world need to be vigilant and support free speech when it comes under attack from the host state.
The Britain’s unofficial censorship unit Ofcom has obviously recognised the ability of countries like Iran to produce slick, polished and balanced programming- and deliver it with a high degree of professionalism. And in TV, the rating don’t lie. The establishment know full well that both Press TV and RT have attracted millions of viewers- viewers who will never go back to the BBC News, SKY News or ITV News.
The battle begins. Today it is a ‘foreign’ TV network like Press TV that is being targeted, and taken down by the state.
Tomorrow, it could be RT… and after that, who knows? Will it be hundreds of ‘foreign’ internet news websites like Infowars.com.
This latest victory for the censors is a move backwards for Britain, and it strikes deep into the heart of our free society- a society that generations have fought long and hard to arrive at.
Support Press TV, support RT. If you really live in a free society, you should be able to watch and support any network that you choose to.
Have no doubt, the infowar is well and truly on.
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Author Patrick Henningsen is an Associate Editor for Infowars, Editor of 21st Century Wire and news analyst for TV network Russia Today.
The US alleges Iran is behind a plot to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Adel al-Jubeir [EPA]
A few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, I attended a big holiday dinner
with family and friends. Naturally much of the conversation revolved
around the terrorist attacks and the rage and sorrow we all felt. There
was also considerable discussion about President George W Bush's
handling of the catastrophe and his decision to send troops to
Afghanistan in pursuit of the perpetrators and to eliminate the Taliban
regime that was hosting them.
Everyone at the table approved of
the president's actions and believed that there was no alternative.
Moreover, and this was somewhat surprising considering that none of us
thought Bush had been legitimately elected, we all believed that he was
being honest about the situation the United States faced and the options
that were before him.
There was, however, one dissenter. My
younger son, then in college, was absolutely opposed to going into
Afghanistan. He said that there had to be a better way to respond than
rushing into a war that, in his opinion, would likely expand and last
"forever." Besides, he added, "I don't believe a word that comes out of
Bush's mouth."
Naturally a brouhaha ensued with everyone
(including me) telling the kid how utterly wrong and unpatriotic he was.
There was a lot of yelling, but he would not back down. He just kept
saying "you'll see."
Boy did we.
Prodded by his neoconservative advisers and outside cheerleaders
eager to pick up where the first Gulf War ended, Bush quickly pivoted
from Afghanistan to the calamitous invasion of Iraq. He justified that
invasion by insisting that Iraq was implicated in the 9/11 attacks (it
wasn't) and that it possessed weapons of mass destruction (it didn't).
Both
the Bush administration and its faithful ally, the Tony Blair
government in the United Kingdom, famously set out to "fix" the
intelligence to deceive the people of both nations into an utterly
unnecessary and unjustified war, the main accomplishment of which has
been to turn Iraq into, of all things, a strong ally of the Islamic
Republic of Iran. Along the way, of course, hundreds of thousands of
Americans, Iraqis, Brits and others have died and Iraq has essentially
been destroyed.
It is against this backdrop that I view the Iranian plot
that was announced earlier this week by the Obama administration. At
this point, it is impossible to say how serious the plot was and, more
importantly, if it even had anything at all to do with the Iranian
government. Are we ready to believe that the cold and calculating people
who govern Iran are contracting out assassination plots with Mexican
drug traffickers or that they would pick Washington as the best place to
attack the Saudi ambassador (knowing that being found responsible for a
major explosion in Washington would mean war with the Saudi Arabia and
United States)?
This is not to dismiss the plot as phony or
contrived. But after the Iraq war experience, it would be awfully stupid
of Americans to simply accept without question anything we are told
about nefarious Muslim states that must be stopped before a "mushroom
cloud" appears over downtown Washington.
The only good news here
is that we have past experience to guide us. But for the lies and
manufactured evidenced that led us into Iraq we might not have reason to
be skeptical about the case the government laid out yesterday and which
the usual suspects are already joyously citing as reason to get tough
with Iran (as if that country is not under onerous sanctions already).
Here is Reuel Mark Gerecht,
one of the leading cheerleaders for the invasion of Iraq, warning that
the supposed plot justifies a US attack on Iran. "The White House needs
to respond militarily to this outrage. If we don't, we are asking for
it," he writes. (Not very different from what he wrote in 2002
when he said that "if President Bush follows his own logic and compels
his administration to follow him against Iraq and Iran, then he will sow
the seeds for a new, safer, more liberal order in the Middle East.")
But
for the lies and manufactured evidence that led us into Iraq, we might
actually accept the idea that the Iran plot is thoroughly genuine and in
no way linked to the determination of so many inside our government and
out of it who are hell-bent on war with Iran and who would do anything
they can to achieve it.
Fortunately, however, and this may be the
only fortunate thing about the Iraq war, the Iraq experience taught us
to be skeptical, especially of anything and everything championed by the
hawks.
So let's go slowly here. If the plot turns out to be both
real and sanctioned by powerful people in Tehran, a strong response of
some kind is warranted. But first let's make sure. The neocons' "drop
bombs now and ask questions later" approach has been thoroughly
discredited. How stupid would we have to be, then, to allow the same
gang to lead us into yet another reckless war, one that would be
infinitely more deadly?
Count me among the skeptics. MJ Rosenberg is a Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at the Media Matters Action Network. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy. A version of this article was previously published on Foreign Policy Matters.
