Ron Paul . . . who?

Sometimes there is a concerted effort to prevent a meme from spreading. If successful, it becomes transparent and you need to dig a little to find what information is being hidden or distorted. At other times, it becomes blindingly obvious.

This is the reporting from our very own BBC on the recent Iowa Republican straw poll results. See if you can work out what is wrong with this report?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14520535

Now the purpose of news is to report the facts. The news report shows that Michele Bachmann came first, but who came second? What was the margin of difference between first and second place? Well you won't find this information in the video. The "accuracy" and "impartiality" that the BBC covets seems to have been thrown out with the facts.

The facts are that Michele Bachmann received 28.6% of the votes and Ron Paul (a Republican candidate which you probably have not heard in the news before) recieved 27.7%. This was from a total of 16,892 people polled. In third place was Tim Pawlenty with 13.6 percent. Mitt Romney (who the reporter states is still very much in the race) received 3.4% of the votes. The reporting later pushes Sarah Palin and Rick Perry as front runners. However, not once was Ron Paul's name mentioned. From my understanding of statistics, getting 27.7% of the votes is alot better than 3.4%. Also the difference between 28.6% and 27.7% seem to me to be neck and neck, especially considering the rather small poll size. Am I missing something here?

This is an obvious meme blocking attempt to hide the fact that a front runner in the Republican race is Ron Paul. But there is something a little more sinister involved here. The real meme they are blocking is the fact that Ron Paul is a Libertarian and the people of America are supporting him and by association, his philosophy.

I thought this was just UK reporting until I discovered that most US coverage reported the poll the same way. See John Stewart's report on this.

Prior to this thing call the "World Wide Web", it would have been difficult to know this was happening as the source of information would have been much more limited. However, even in this age, you must always be on alert to what is portrayed in the media. I accidentally discovered Ron Paul only this year by stumbling across some youtube video on a debate on the war on drugs. I was so impressed by him that I continued listening to other videos featuring him. Later I learnt that he also ran for the previous presidential race, but of course I doubt anyone in the UK has heard of him. Had I not heard of Ron Paul, the BBC interview would have simply been another boring presidential candidacy race, accepting the report on face value. I'm sure that's how most people in the UK saw it.