I have my bases for news pretty well covered, relying mostly on CBS for mainstream national and local news, and a variety of websites and radio shows such as The New American or The Peter Schiff Show for libertarian-friendly alternative news and economic info. I’ll also check out youtube clips from various sources, peruse the local newspapers, and stream commercial-free international news such as Russia Today or BBC World from Livestation.com’s excellent free and legit Windows app. With all that and more, I don’t often feel the need to watch the 24 hour news channels such as Fox or CNN but because it’s election time I decided to watch some CNN for a change to see what they had to say, especially since my favorite candidate Ron Paul is first or tied for first in the Iowa polls. Watching CNN also gives me a chance to see how fellow Americans are being informed by the mainstream media.

I didn’t have overly high expectations when tuning in. I’ve been watching the mainstream CBS Evening News for about 3 years now and Ron Paul’s name was never once mentioned the entire campaign season until December 5, 2011 when they mentioned that Ron Paul was polling second at 18% in the Des Moines Register poll, behind Gingrich and ahead of Romney. Previously, Paul had been polling a fairly steady 10% nationally and was bouncing between 3rd and 4th place. In the CBS debate from November 2011, the CBS moderators felt free to ignore Ron Paul and gave him a mere 90 seconds of speaking time, which is less than all the other candidates and less than half the time given to Michelle Bachmann, who was second to last in speaking time. In contrast, Romney, Perry, Gingrich, and Cain were all given around 6 to 8 minutes each to express their views. A blog on ABC’s website quoted Ron Paul’s campaign manager Jesse Benton that CBS’s treatment was “disgraceful”. But ABC doesn’t really have much of a leg to stand on either. In September 2011, ABC did a report on the results of a Washington Post ~ ABC poll in which Ron Paul came in 3rd at 10%, but in the news presentation they completely skipped over Ron Paul and showed that Michelle Bachmann at 8% was third in line in the poll, lagging behind Mitt Romney.

On the other hand, CNN hosted their own debate less than 2 weeks after CBS and this time Ron Paul was treated far more fairly and given approximately 10 minutes of speaking time, which was a minute and half to two minutes less than the top 3 speakers. Not bad at all. Paul is also a semi-frequent guest on CNN so when I tuned in at a random time on Jan. 2 2012, 1 day before the Iowa caucus, I expected to get some decent coverage on Ron Paul in the race to the White House. I watched for about 70 minutes and caught the last 10 minutes of the rebroadcast of Erin Burnett’s OutFront followed by an hour of Piers Morgan for a total of 70 minutes of viewing time.

“Anyone but Ron Paul” was the name of the game. Ron Paul’s position on Iran is that America should not go to war with Iran if its government attempts to gain nuclear weapons and that if Israel feels threatened by Iran, the Israeli government should be able to intervene without interference from the United States. America did not attack Russia, North Korea, India, or Pakistan when these nations obtained nuclear weapons and Paul doesn’t want to make Iran the exception. But CNN’s OutFront was using scare tactics that Iran was working on nuclear weapons, Iran was going to use them against Israel, and that Iran endangered the flow of oil to America by threatening to close down the Straight of Hormuz. Why and if Iran would actually do any of these things goes unreported. Another one of Ron Paul’s positions is that America should close down military bases around the world and bring those troops home – America can’t afford to be the world’s policeman and each country should be responsible for its own defense. OutFront, on the other hand, was reporting that removing troops from South Korea would “destabilize the region” and benefit North Korea and China. Paul’s name was never mentioned in these last 10 minutes of the broadcast, and although these reports go completely against Ron Paul, maybe Outfront gave Paul some fair and balanced coverage during the beginning of the program. But it was time to move onto the rebroadcast of CNN’s Piers Morgan.

In the final weeks before the Iowa Caucus, Ron Paul has been polling at first place between 20 and 25 percent so you’d think that in the final night before the caucus, frontrunner Ron Paul would be given a great deal of coverage by Morgan on CNN. Instead, for the entire hour Ron Paul’s name was mentioned twice but discussed not even once. Instead, there was a 20 minute interview with Newt Gingrich, a candidate that admitted “I don’t think I’m going to win” Iowa. Another 20 minutes was spent on an interview with Herman Cain, who had already dropped out of the Republican presidential race. Why is this man still relevant? The remaining time was spent interviewing Iowa Governor Terry Branstad and for some reason Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels was also given time to give his take on the Iowa race. So for one hour, the American public had plenty of time to hear from non-contenders about Mitt Romney, the Santorum “surge”, and even Jon Huntsman (who is polling last) and his view that “They pick corn in Iowa. They pick presidents in New Hampshire.” But coverage of Ron Paul, the invisible frontrunner, was completely blacked out.

One scientific study reported that Ron Paul was given the least time to participate in the 2011 presidential debates. One Republican strategist suggested that Ron Paul would not be “allowed” to win Iowa. At the same time, the media has been hedging its bets by suggesting that if Ron Paul wins Iowa in 2012, it won’t matter. This is in strong contrast to the importance the media gave to Iowa in the 2008 election. Is there a conspiracy to keep Ron Paul down? You decide. But more importantly, don’t let the media dictate to you who the acceptable candidates are. Again, you decide. If you want my take to help you decide who I think the only acceptable candidate is, please check out my earlier article: Ron Paul 2012? The Stars are Finally in Alignment.