Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008
Revenge of the Paulites News sites profit from Ron Paul hit pieces. The Paulites can have their revenge with a coordinated boycott.by Michael McDonnough
(Libertarian)
Monday, October 29, 2007
In my analysis of the current online phenomena of Ron Paul and the Revolution that is occurring with his Presidential bid I have witnessed the growing chorus of negative articles which all seem to echo each other with their story content and analysis of the so called news they are generating.
They all are aware of the huge jump in their readership when they publish their articles on Ron Paul and it has become evident that these attacks are so clearly baseless for the most part that perhaps there is another reason for their continued existence and persistence. Perhaps what the massive online Ron Paul community is seeing is a profit making venture in disguise as hit piece news articles on Ron Paul.
What if the real reason behind these attacks is not just to attack Dr. Paul but in doing so also generate page views which raises the ranking of the offending site, while increasing traffic to their nested ads to generate increased revenue for the site? It makes perfect sense. The author of the offensive piece does not have to have any bit of strong evidence to author a story and even less to simply parrot the negative pieces done on other sites adding their own analysis to the article.
Each of these authors has it in their interest to attract as many Paul supporters and detractors to their sites and what better way to do this then to run a hit piece on Ron Paul. My advice to the Ron Paul supporters is that they use their huge numbers and instead of flocking to the offending site and hammering the comments section that they instead make a concerted boycott of any offending sites. This will have several beneficial effects for the Ron Paul campaign.
1. It will eliminate the financial incentive for these scoundrels to continue in their attacks.
2. It will dramatically reduce their site traffic which will negatively affect their page ranking.
3. It will end the criticism of Ron Paul supporters as being fanatics flooding their comments.
All of these benefits and more will be realized with a coordinated boycott of all offending news sites and blogs. There might be a slight increase in negative articles in the wake of this boycott but if the Ron Paul supporters stick to their guns and stay off of sites that are listed in the boycott then these attacks will be reduced and the attention paid to them will be measurably reduced as well. At the very least the Paulites will take some revenge on them by taking money out of their undeserving pockets.
Here is my short list of boycott deserving sites. Feel free to add your ideas to the comments section.
Red State, Hot Air, Liberty Papers, Lone Star Times, The Van Der Galin Gazette, American Thinker, Fullosseous, Medved
If you still feel you must visit the offending sites and make comments one reader suggests that you at least install AdBlock Plus for Firefox and add the domain name of the offending site to the list of blocked sites. This will at least deny them ad revenue from Paulites. It will still reward them with site traffic which will improve their site rank but will at least deny them some ad revenue.
Did you like this article? If you did, Thumb It! 70 thumbs so far
The views expressed in this
article are those of Michael McDonnough only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Michael McDonnough is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
I understand most of the sites listed, especially Red State and Lone Star Times, but I don't understand Liberty Papers. They've published plenty of pro Ron Paul pieces, and I don't think they necessarily have an anti-Paul or ad revenue agenda like most of the others. I'd like to suggest the Weekly Standard, perhaps, and also possibly Fox News, though.
I also agree there's no point in going to Red State or Lone Star Times. I've already blocked them out. However, I think some of the others report fairly..... By the way, I implore Ron Paul fans to be polite when they email or post people. Attack the issues, but not the people.
Posted By: Michael McDonnough
Date: 2007-10-29 18:06:27
Joe,
Those are some good suggestions. Perhaps you are right on Liberty Papers but they have certainly turned negative of late. I do not see a lot of ads in their site anyway. I just think that rewarding sites that slam Ron Paul by providing traffic and ad revenue is counter productive for the campaign. Thanks for your suggestions and comment.
I sent the following email to Red State, and they responded by blocking my IP address, so I can no longer read their articles. I would like to thank them for preventing me from inadvertently looking at their website.
Dear Sirs- Now that you have banned new users from discussing Ron Paul, could you please take the next logical step and ban his name from being mentioned altogether? That way I won't have to be irritated by seeing the name of your website popping up on Google News. Thank you very much. Sincerely
Being an IT professional, I too noticed the potential of making waves by posting garbage about Ron Paul. At first I was angered, and I must admit, I posted comments in a vain attempt to defend against the outlandish remarks paraded as journalism. As I reflected more on the issue I come to the same conclusions. I was bamboozled by the shear arrogance in neglecting the truth of the matter and found it to be my duty to try and correct it so that others will see truth rather than lies. Ron Paul supporters, as I am one, are pasionate towards the cause. I think I can speak for some when I say that deep within we know that his message deserves to be heard and that after hearing it...it is a hard thing to let go. The apathy fades as the anger grows. I created a website last night that, if anything, lets me and whoever stumbles apon it, a chance to atleast voice and put opinions to the test of anyone else who wants to do the same. notredstate.com is it's name.
Keep Liberty Papers on the list. They've had enough chances to right the wrongs they've done. You can add Medved and Wonkette to this list as well as Fullosseous Flap's http://flapsblog.com/
Posted By: Michael McDonnough
Date: 2007-10-29 19:28:40
I feel the same way. I think Liberty Papers has done little for liberty and not much for Ron Paul but parrot the negative hit pieces from Hot Air. So one vote to remove them and 2 votes to keep Liberty Papers on the list. I am not familiar with the others. I do not read Wonkette since it is satire and I do not bother with that kind of nonsense.
Hey there, I would definitely add "Bamapachyderm" to the list -- he calls real conservatives and Ron Paul supporters "the far right." He can have fun with his little blog, because in case he didn't notice, most of the conservatives have already left the party, or are just sticking around to vote for Ron Paul in the primaries and take it from there.
Posted By: Kevin Houston
Date: 2007-10-29 20:21:45
I think this should not be site-specific, but should be in place for *any* negative hit piece.
*BUT*
By not commenting at all, we lose the chance to correct negative information. So I suggest a 1 hour time limit.
If you see a story on google news which is an obvious hit piece, and it is less than 2 hours old, then go there, refute it (nicely of course) and leave.
If it is 2 hours old or more, then don't even load it. There doesn't need to be a list.
Some sites don't allow comments, so don't even load those.
Kevin houstons suggestion makes perhaps the most sense. And for cripes sake, don't get nasty, or drift into conspiracy theories as a means of debuking the garbage. Study logical falacies if you don't know them (you should have learned this in high school but probably ignored them) and then take a few seconds to make the argument flow. The goal here is to get an A in "debate class"
Vote to put The Liberty Paper on the list. There is an article on there now called "The Club for Growth grades Ron Paul's economic record."
That's like writing a piece called AIPAC grades Ron Paul on foreign policy. You see some nasty comments. I applaud the "Paulites" for their mature and elucidating comments.
I certainly agree with this. I'm not sure on Liberty Papers but I would lean toward leaving them on the list. Fullosseous is just an extension of the Red State echo chamber. I think Fox would be a shoe in for the list. Wonkette was actually one of the first to start saying anything positive so I would vote against including her.
I appreciate your sentiment, but you miss one valid point: "Paulites" are far from being a homogeneous entity. They are all *very* independent, so trying to organize and co-ordinate a boycott would be like trying to herd cats on Red Bull.
These mainstream media outlets need to realize that the effect of shutting out Ron Paul from coverage (and, particularly, positive (read: non-negative, even neutral) coverage) is that everybody is 'starved' of information. They go to where they can get it. They would benefit so much more by putting up "fair and balanced" reports, and watch the crowds swarm to them naturally.
Supporting Ron Paul is good for business, in more ways than one.
Posted By: Michael McDonnough
Date: 2007-10-30 07:18:43
Thanks for all your comments and suggestions. I can see a few to add to the list by the agreement of those who have posted. The idea is one that requires some agreement in order to be effective. I am a google news search hound as well so I know that all we need to do is keep off of the sites that are known to publish mostly negative stuff on Ron Paul and we will effect a loss in their ad revenue.
I have also noticed fluctuations in Liberty Papers "stories" as well. I stopped giving them web-traffic some time ago. You can also add to the list: "GOPStrawpolls" which is run by the "little Bushborg" Matt Margolis up in Boston; he also runs "blogsforbush". Also add, "Little Green Footballs", the right-wing warblog by Charles Foster Johnson; who also runs "Pajamas Media" along with Roger L. Simon. Heavy advertising on the latter blogs, so don't bother with them at all. That's my two-cents. (Which is actually worth $0.014745 at Melt Value. The "copper" penny is actually 97.5% zinc! Go Figure!)
Want to comment on this
article? Leave your comment here. Your email address is
required to track your comment. However, we will neither
publish your email address nor distribute it to other
organizations or persons. The only reason we might use
it would be if we needed to contact you regarding your
comment. All comments are subject to our
terms of use policy.
