New York Times on lack of Ron Paul coverage

Ron Paul was in yesterday's New York Times for the fact that he was not mentioned in the NYT - after coming in a close second in the straw poll; see previous post for details. Michael D. Shear writes:


'Is Representative Ron Paul getting a raw deal in the news coverage of his presidential campaign? 
Jon Stewart, the host of "The Daily Show", thinks so. And so do many fans of Mr. Paul, who have taken to e-mail and Twitter to vent their frustration that his strong second-place finish in the Iowa straw poll is being largely ignored.
"It's absolutely horrendous and despicable the lack of media coverage Ron Paul is getting," one of them wrote on Twitter.
Readers of the New York Times expressed their views on its coverage of the straw polls in a flurry of e-mails. Mr Paul, a 12-term Republican congressman from Texas, lost to Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota by only 152 of 17,000 votes cast.
"We live in a democratic republic, where the votes of the people deserve to be reported by the media, not editorialized into obscurity, wrote Matthew H. Harder.
Richard Timm wrote that "Ron Paul's second-place finish merited much more attention in your article."
"Even if you don't believe he can win the nomination," Mr. Timm wrote, "don't you think it's worth given the only antiwar Republican worth a little more emphasis?"
But some skeptics have pointed out that Mr. Paul's strength at the straw poll seems outsized when compared with his popularity across the country, at least as measured by opinion polls.
Of course, Mr. Paul's followers would say that his low standing in the polls is a result of the failure of the news media to adequately report on his successes at events like the straw poll.

I called the NYT  - 212-556-1234 to get to talk to this reporter, but the voice recognition machine either did not have him on as a reporter or sent me to other people. The NYT  phone maze is hard to navigate, it's as if they want to write hit-and-run articles and then hide from the general public; once a reporter contacted me about a stash of stolen art I was privy to, and when I told him there were Picassos, he was so arrogant the refused to believe me; then it turned out there were Picassos - which had been stolen by the movers, who tried to sell them stupidly in NY.

The NYT has to learn to listen and it would be a better paper; it reports on Michele Bachmann, who got a write up yesterday again for her stupidity - when she remarked on it being Elvis' birthday  - it wasn't - and on Rick Perry - again, for his stupidity - and he got a much lengthier column for saying something that sounded like a threat towards a government official. All the papers covered it, and even right-wingers like John Podhoretz were forced to note how wrong it was.

But when someone acts presidential, reporters ignore it.

I did get through to Jeff Zeleny, who is also covering the debates, and had to call his other number - 202-862-0401. I told him I'd been reading the paper for over 40 years and that they ought to listen to the people who pay their salaries. Next I will email him at zeleny@nytimes.com

So let's see...they missed the Picasso story, even when they were the ones to contact me, hopefully they will not miss the Ron Paul story as well.