Does Ron Paul deserve more coverage?

By Patrick B. Pexton, Published: August 26

Has The Post given Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul short shrift in coverage?

 

The ombudsman, like most mainstream media outlets, got hit with a wave of pro-Paul e-mails just after the Aug. 13 Iowa straw poll in which the Texas representative finished a few corn silk strands behind Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann. I received more e-mails after the most recent national Gallup Poll showed Paul ahead of Bachmann and third behind Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

 

Paul supporters think these results put him into the top tier of candidates. But most of the major television stories that followed the Iowa event, as Jon Stewart so aptly lampooned, barely mentioned Paul.

 

Overall, The Post’s record on Paul coverage is sparse.

 

The Post’s main politics blog, The Fix by Chris Cillizza and compatriots, had by the far the most coverage of Paul of any of The Post’s publishing venues, with about nine posts mainly or substantially about Paul, but dozens more where he is mentioned once or twice along with the other GOP candidates. If you’re a print reader, you don’t see much of this, but I’ve compiled it all on the omblog. Cillizza also was one of the few political analysts before the Iowa poll saying that Paul could place first or second in the poll.

 

... Steven Ginsberg, The Post’s national political editor, countered that Paul has “gotten every bit of the coverage he deserves