Ralph Nader questions media coverage (PR)

[Robb]

Robb's note: I don't make 'em up, I just pass 'em along. In today's episode, Nader equates his struggle for coverage with the civil rights movement.

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

RALPH NADER QUESTIONS MEDIA COVERAGE

Below is an open letter to the national media from Ralph Nader.

Open Letter to Members of the National Media:

Dear Members of the 4th Estate:
Having spoken to numerous reporters and some editors with the national media (as
distinguished from the local media) about the blackout or near blackout of the
Nader/Gonzalez presidential campaign, striving to challenge the two party,
exclusionary duopoly, (debates, ballot obstacles, etc.) I must ask a general
question:

What journalistic criteria have you been employing in this presidential year that
guides your pronounced non-coverage of the number three campaign that advances
majoritarian agendas based on long experience, involvement, and accomplishment.
These agendas are either opposed or ignored by McCain and Obama (see
www.votenader.org) and are often rooted in the very investigative reports by your
reporters?

It is puzzling how editors and publishers who oversee these prize winning stories
seem to lose interest in covering Americans who are trying to do something with that
information for a better country.

We asked one top editor of a major daily why his paper was not covering us at all
and he said, "Because you can't win." Besides being a catch-22 that he quickly
acknowledged, that is not a supportable newsworthy judgment. News Media have covered
many stories outside the electoral arena of people "who can't win" and such coverage
extends to both the import of the struggles and the reasons why "winning is not
possible" given the stacked deck against them.

There has been a witting or unwitting political bigotry against third parties and
independent candidates, as there was years ago against minority voters. Against the
status of such candidates obstructed through ballot access laws by the two parties
that dislike competition they present other rigged ways to secure their domination
over the electoral landscape, including gerrymandering each other in the majority of
Congressional Districts, for example.

This is meant to be a short letter. Journalism scholars, reporters, and other
post-election writers of books and articles will be chronicle, no doubt, the
quantity and quality of media coverage (see the previous analysis by such scholars
as Stephen Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter).

For now, please verify for yourselves your own non-coverage or coverage and inform
us what your journalistic criteria standards or policies led you to this definition
of your readers, listeners, and viewers rights to know.

Thank you for responding, even though there is obviously no obligation to do so.





Sincerely,



Ralph Nader


-End-


************


Additional Robb's note: Because I can't look past a chance to show them again, a pair of photos I snapped shortly after the 2000 election, up in the back of beyond. I swear I was not responsible:

[The Magistrate]

1. Nader, Sir, Needs To Sit Down And Shut The Fuck Up

His only complaint by now is that he will be unable to materially assist a Republican victory this time around.

[uppityperson]

2. You are so polite.

:rofl:

[melody]

3. Ralph the Quasi-Ombudsmen needs to get a life

[budkin]

4. I'm so fucking sick of Nader... can't believe I voted for him in 2000.

[rvablue]

5. Everyone can make a mistake.....have to say I'm delighted to read your initial sentiment! n/t

[Renew Deal]

6. Nader is doing a good job of becoming another Lyndon Larouche

:thumbsdown:

[Occam Bandage]

7. Sorry, Ralph. I'm afraid that the limit on Republicans enabled is one.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled self-aggrandizement.

[vanderBeth]

8. Is he shitting me?

:rofl:

[biglefthander]

9. I question Nader's sanity...go away now Ralph, no one cares anymore. n/t

[mac56]

10. Ralphy is shambling toward irrelevance.

A sorry waste of oxygen.