“Unfair and Unbalanced” Reporting from Fox News (AGAIN) – NH Debate that Ron Paul WON!

Ron Paul Won by a Landslide

Compilation of Congressman Ron Paul at the Fourth GOP Presidential Debate held in the Whittemore Center at the University of New Hampshire on September 5th, 2007. (Note: Giuliani disrespectfully laughs at questions directed at Dr. Paul. Laughter can easily be heard at 5:25 & 3:10 and again with 1:23 remaining:)

Open Letter to Fox News

Wednesday night during the debate Fox News and Sean Hannity displayed an extreme amount of discourtesy and disrespect to not only the Republican Presidential candidates, but the American people as well.

There was a very clear bias towards several individuals on stage. Senator Brownback and Congressman Ron Paul received very little air time in comparison to the other candidates on stage. Rudy Giuliani was allowed much more talk time as well as additional talk time after the bell than any other candidate on stage. The moderator would ask all the candidates their opinion on issues, i.e., taxes or Gitmo, and ignore only Ron Paul’s completely different opinion on those matters. Finally, when the moderator would get around to asking Dr. Paul a question it was a unique one-sided question engineered to make Dr. Paul appear foolish. Furthermore, when the moderator would ask a question of Dr. Paul it seemed as though Rudy Giuliani’s microphone was purposefully turned up so that he could be heard snickering at the question. What type of Presidential candidate is that inconsiderate as to laugh at questions directed towards another candidate?

The attempted manipulation portrayed at the debate continued throughout the ‘Hannity and Combs’ broadcast as well. First, when the results for the cell phone text messaging poll were announced live on the air, Hannity could be heard screaming out “Oh you’ve got to be kidding me, this is driving me crazy”, then he resorted to the claim that Ron Paul supporters were calling multiple times. What type of infotainment journalism is this? Furthermore, the phone system wouldn’t allow multiple votes from the same telephone number. Hannity’s claim was a lie and he should make a public apology for disrespecting last night’s viewers. We don’t appreciate this host criticizing a very American belief that we are fighting an endless, pointless war and we need to come home. Apparently over 33% of the viewers from last night felt the same way. Why is this so hard to believe and/or understand?

But the disrespect didn’t stop with that comment. ‘Hannity and Combs’ invited all of the candidates as guests after the debate. Each guest on stage was treated with respect and dignity. They were posed questions and allowed to answer questions. Dr. Paul however was chastised and hassled by a very confrontational host when he appeared on stage. Dr. Paul was not even allowed to answer a single question without being hammered by Sean Hannity. Fox News actually had to cut away from Hannity to allow the interview to continue with a more reserved and more professional Combs, but that didn’t stop Sean Hannity from bursting in with “Oh I just have to ask this question…..” as he continued to argue with Dr. Paul. Fox News had no other option but to cut to commercial after only a very short time.

The attempt by this organization and its proprietors to sway the election in their favor is unethical and should be construed as nothing less than attempted voter manipulation. Fox News appears in tens of millions of homes across the nation and they should not be allowed to continue this very ‘unfair and unbalanced’ manipulation of the United States Presidential election.

Ron Paul won the poll last night by a land slide. And when asked by the host of the guests in the New Hampshire restaurant how many patrons were disappointed with Giuliani’s performance, most, if not all raised their hands. Where is any of this newsworthy information on the FoxNews.com website? It’s no where to be found. The current front page image is an edited picture that shows McCain, Romney, Giuliani and Fred Thompson, a candidate that wasn’t even a part of last nights debates. Why does Fox News feel as though they can dictate the next American president to the American people?

Based on the previous biased towards certain candidates, I now call on Fox News to end their blatant favoritism towards Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. It is clear that the American people are not interested in an individual with poor family values, poor economical sense, a false sense of liberty, a dead-beat dad attitude and poor leadership qualities in a commanding position in our nations top Office. I also call on Fox News to live up to their claim of ‘Fair and Balanced’ and provide an equal amount of air time towards Dr. Paul and the other non-mainstream media candidates. It’s not up to Fox News to decide who the Presidential candidates will be; it’s up to the American people.

Finally, I call on Fox News to end their relationship with Sean Hannity. This individual is a horrible example of biased reporting and it is very obvious that he is unable to control his own emotional opinion when he sits before a guest (and a nationwide audience) with whom he may not agree. There is absolutely no excuse for a host of a show to disrespect, dishonor and slander a Presidential hopeful as was done during the New Hampshire debate.

Wednesday night was a horrible demonstration of yet another blatant attempt at manipulation and I call on Fox News to end this sort of behavior immediately. I encourage all Fox News employees to vote in this upcoming election, but not to use your widely broadcast news organization in an attempt to sway uninformed Americans towards a specific candidate who will be just as unpopular as the current President. It’s not your election to choose, Fox News. “You Choose 2008” is directed towards the American people, not the Fox Network.

After the debate, viewers could text in their vote as to who won the debate. When Ron Paul dominated with 35% of the vote, Fox tried to play it off that it was just a small group of Ron Paul supporters texting over and over again on their phones. However, it was not possible to vote more than once!
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2007/060907_hannity_lies.htm

From the perversion that was the Fox News coverage of the debate, you would have thought that the crowd was booing Ron Paul (@ 4:55) when he spoke about the neo-cons and their ill-headed strategy of war with Iraq (that I’ve been against since Fall 2002) and his suggestion that we should immediately leave. The boos came out of nowhere. However, I figured it out. There was a big screen TV for people at the debate and they flashed Guiliani’s face up on it for a few seconds when Ron Paul made his final point. The tricksters at Fox news knew some people would boo Guiliani being on the screen and that people watching at home would think the boos were directed at Ron Paul, because the camera didn’t pan backwards to show the big screen. This was the first time they paneled two separate people on the large TV screen that night. In this case, it was Giuliani and Ron Paul and the interesting part was that Giuliani kept smirking as if he knew about it. Further, it was obvious, being the audiophile that I am, that whenever Ron Paul got cheers and an applause, a slight fade from loud to nominal occured. Propaganda at its best.

Again, the crowd wasn’t (mostly anyway) booing Ron Paul; they were booing Fox News’s decision to put up Gestapo Rude’s face on the split monitor. OR it may have been Wallace (the moderator) actually getting boo’d for asking the dumb question “Do you take your marching orders from Al Queda?”, to which Ron Paul responded with, “I take my marching orders from the Constitution”, which received an uproar of applause.

There was so much cheering for Paul during his speech leading up to this question, and then booing as soon as Wallace asked the follow-up question (and before Paul could respond). (Thanks to John Lavis @ http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/ for the video.)

How the crowd really sounded when Ron Paul walked on stage. Not altered by the Fox control center:

Proof of MySpace Censoring Ron Paul Supporters. BTW, Myspace is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which also owns Fox News.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/09/1135209

Other News:

Ron Paul Wins Maryland Straw Poll!
http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2007/09/03/daily17.html

In Spite Of Tyranny at the Texas Straw Poll, Ron Paul still comes in Third!
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2007/030907_b_Tyranny.htm