Miami Herald excludes Ron Paul from front page
The front page of the Miami Herald yesterday featured a big picture of President Obama. Right beside him were Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, with Mitt Romney earning a small portrait below. The title of the article under the Republican candidates was “Florida in view as GOP bids rev up.”
Here is the lede of the article:
“How do you start from nothing and quickly rev up a serious presidential campaign in a state as big as Florida?
We’re about to see Rick Perry try.
The Republican presidential race suddenly looks like a three-person battle between Texas Gov. Perry, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. But as the focus of the contest soon shifts to Florida, Perry and Bachmann are invisible in the state while Romney has an expansive political network still in place since his campaign here four years ago.”
This raises two questions for me, one of which I sent to the article’s author. Here is my letter to Adam C. Smith:
Dear Mr. Smith,
Your article on the GOP race was recently on the front page of the Miami Herald. You said the race “suddenly looks like a three-person battle between Texas Gov. Perry, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.” I am curious, how did you come to this conclusion? Ron Paul came in second to Bachmann by 100 votes, and he finished far ahead of Romney. How did you come to the conclusion that the field is led by Perry and Romney and Bachmann? Also, did you hear that Bachmann was giving away Randy Travis tickets to get votes? Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Andrew Meyer
Besides trying to figure out how Mr. Smith can declare the Republican race a “three-person battle” between Romney, Perry, and Bachmann, when Ron Paul came in second by 100 votes (without buying voters with free Randy Travis tickets), this article raises a second question. How can the Miami Herald print this story on the front page and call it news?
This story is opinion. The Herald has printed Mr. Smith’s opinion that the Republican race is a “three-person battle” as news, and their news story neglects to even mention Ron Paul. The opinion story also fails to mention a number of other Republican candidates, but none of them nearly won Iowa or got raucous applause at the debate.
I contend that the Herald, along with the rest of the “mainstream” news companies, are deliberately excluding Ron Paul from the conversation. The same day that the Herald printed their “three-person battle” opinion as news, the Wall Street Journal’s front page was given to dueling pictures of Obama and Bachmann. In 2007, the New York Times front page frequently featured Obama, Hilary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain. This is how the “mainstream” media has been conning people into believing that Ron Paul and other honest candidates can’t win. The media repeatedly features the candidates they want to win and calls the honest candidates “longshots,” and the American people have been suckered by this approach for years.
The Miami Herald’s news is pure propaganda, part of what we should start calling the “industrial news complex.”
In my opinion, they are paid pimps for War, Banks, and other profit-engines.