Thursday, December 13, 2007

Ron Paul - ABC News Fix Has Interview Only On Web

This is a terrible bit of news I got from Andrew Sulivan and which he got from The Huff Post's Matt Simon. Apparently Congressman Ron Paul gave an interview to ABC News' John Stossel -- one that ABC didn't show on television, but confined to the World Wide Web.

This is the latest and ultimate example of a mainstream media fix that has been in the works in different forms, from polling to television coverage. New Media to the rescue as bloggers and vloggers uncover a fix that would have determined the election in the past.

No more.

According to Matt Simon, Stossel wrote this:

Despite relatively low poll numbers, Paul has had a big influence on the presidential campaign. That's in part because he's raised a ton of money, and in part because of the passionate following he has on the Web. It's one reason we're posting my interview with Paul only on the Internet, where the debate about Paul is very active. In fact, he's the most Googled presidential candidate.

Yeah, right.

Any Internet expert know that television drives web searches. If the interview were shown on ABC, it would have compelled many undecided viewers to go to their computers and search for news on Ron Paul.

ABC either knew this and punted, or didn't know this, and still worked to deny the Paul interview full disemenation. In either case, it's wrong what was done. Here's the ABC interview.