old story

John Edwards has been ignored because corporate leaders want to insure that the party would nominate candidates who can be relied upon to protect and foster their interests. With his challenge to their power, Edwards does not qualify for those powerful companies. In the 2004 primary, the corporate-owned media used many strategies to take down Howard Dean in Iowa and make the voters believe that the candidate to represent the Democratic Party was John Kerry. For the 2008, the media narrowed the Democratic candidates in to two; both very important candidate that would change American history. Even though Hilary Clinton has the highest negatives of any Democrat, the media had to choose her because of her name recognition and fundraising ability. John Edwards has offered a detailed universal health-care plan. He has promised to make union organizing easier. As president, Edwards has said he wants to increase the minimum wage and retract tax breaks for the wealthy. He believes that the United States should cooperate with other nations rather than unilateralism. Unlike Obama and Clinton, he does not believe that nuclear power should be part of the mix to decrease dependence on fossil fuels.

How will these policies affect major corporations? First, a health care plan could harmfully damage health insurance companies. Helping unions organize easier and to increase minimum wages is something that is unpleasant for corporate-owners. Retrieving tax breaks will give the wealthy people difficulties. The armament companies will have a decrease on their sales and so does companies that deal with nuclear power. In addition, John Edwards has accused FOX that they are too sympathetic to the GOP. He has skipped a debate in Nevada last year because FOX was the host. With this kind of a relationship, there will be no hope for Edwards to appear in such media companies.

How was the media coverage of the candidates based on political parties? A joint report by “The Center for American Progress and Free Press” has announced that a conservative talk radio is broadcasted ten times longer that progressive talk radio. Looking at the headlines of mainstream media there might be a clue to understand which political party is more important to the media corporations. With the understanding that there were terrible tragedies of the tornados, excluding The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press, most online news sources had their headlines about the tornados right after the “Super Tuesday” was over. But reading the political page, CNN and ABC were referring to the GOP. The New York Times, CBS and MSNBC— splashing both of the stories, the primary and the tornado half and half— chose the Democratic Party. It was interesting that the FOX— being accused by John Edwards— had the pictures of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain nicely divided into one-third each. Overall, it was unfortunate, but there were more media that had chosen the Democratic Party for their headlines than the GOP.

Merci

Ron Paul

Back to "Super Tuesday," Ron Paul was hardly ever covered by the media. Although he may not have done that well for the primary, he was voted second place in Montana. But the media behaved as he wasn’t even part of this primary; or just interviewing after a great loss. Why has the result of Ron Paul become so different compared to his image via internet? Ron Paul had the most friends and supporters in major social networking sites— MySpace and Facebook— for a Republican.

Including the Democratic candidates, he was in the third place overall. In addition, I have heard that Ron Paul was ranked always in the top 40 viewed in YouTube.
Was this a plan to get the interests of the internet savvy? Or was it a desperate measure taken under the pressure of necessity? The answer would probably be closer to the latter. Two candidates have been ignored by the mainstream media. Not only was Ron Paul trying to be silenced by the mainstream media, but John Edwards from the Democratic Party was in the same situation.

They weren’t ignored because they do not have the power or name value. Looking at the fund raising, Ron Paul was ranked the seventh, raising 42.1 million dollars and John Edwards ranked fifth, raising 44.3 million dollars. The leading fund raiser Hilary Clinton has raised 118.3 million dollars along with Barack Obama, raising 103.8 million dollars. The leading candidate for the Republicans, John McCain raised 42.1 million dollars ranking sixth, which is lower than John Edwards. Having Mitt Romney in the third place with 90.1 million dollars, it is surprising that Mike Huckabee was ranked twelfth with 9 million dollars over all (CNN-Politics-Finances). What the public could understand from this situation is that John Edwards and Ron Paul are both good fund raisers as a politician. Candidates must have good convincing policies and commitments in order to receive reliance and donation from the public.

The possible reason for the two candidates being silenced by the mainstream media is that their policies were inconvenient to the major companies. Ron Paul, a libertarian— believing in a limited government— is the only Republican that was against the war and claiming an immediate evacuation from the Mid East. Even though the leading Democratic candidates have preached the necessity of arms reduction to the Mid East, their commitment wasn’t as strong as Ron Paul’s. Barack Obama has said that depending on the necessity, he would maintain the army in the Mid West for a while. Now if my understanding of corporate coalition is somewhat proper, I believe the media has a strong relation with the powerful corporations. These corporations do not want an instant evacuation in order to make profit for their own company. In addition, Ron Paul has lost his attraction after some media has accused him for his newsletter “Political Report” issued in 1992. Even the Cato Institute— which had a relationship with Ron Paul with publishing his conclusion from the commission couple decades ago— has written an article of Ron Paul that although his policy is considerable, he will not win the presidency.


Gracias

The Media Coverage of some candidates

Hello friends from Dr.Paul Levinson's class.

I hope not too many people will be reading this because I have no confidence writing about politics.

Since I am an international student that has no citizenship in this country, I don't think I would support any canidates but just write something I learned from other classes or from a non-American--or just say a Japanese-- perspective.


My first post will be about the media coverage of some candidates.
Why does the mainstream media show a composition of 2 Democratic Candidate and 3 Republican Candidate?

I understand that those candidates are the only ones that have won the primary. But it seems as even before "Super Tuesday" the media has been covering cetain candidates for the goods of themselves or just based on popularity.

I think I would keep updating my blog as I learn more about American Politics.

Shukran