Reality Check: Fair Coverage Ot The story behind the Ron Paul newsletters

Airing Date Jan.04, 2012, you can also view this at Dailymotion http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xngc...


i post this to give a proper journalistic news perspective of this issue.under fair use,

www fox19 com/story/16449477/reality-check-the-sto­ry-behind-the-ron-paul-newsletters

The talk of Ron Paul's racist newsletters has been all over the news for the past few weeks and seem to dominate all of the Congressman's interviews.

So what about these newsletters is true and what is the rest of the media not telling you?

Starting as far back as 1976, Congressman Paul published a newsletter. It has gone by several names. The Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Investment Letter, etc.

That newsletter was largely an investment newsletter, dealing with currency, gold and investments. That was the case from 1976 to 1988.

Over the course of those 144 editions, no racist content.

To understand this story, you have to look at the timeline.

In 1984 Paul gave up his seat in Congress when he made an unsuccessful run for the Senate.

In 1985 he went back to Texas to continue to practice medicine full time as an OB-GYN.

His return to politics as a Congressman was in 1996.

In 2007 when Congressman Paul was last running for president, a newspaper called The New Republic found copies hard copies of the newsletters, and these, they reported, were filled with racist, anti-homosexual and conspiracy oriented content.

So lets talk content.

In all, the Ron Paul newsletters were released on a monthly basis for 20 years. That means there were no fewer than 240 editions published.

There are a total of 20 editions of the Ron Paul newsletters, which have passages or sections of racist, bigoted, or anti homosexual language, as well as conspiracy theories.

Since the conspiracy theories, aren't really the issue here, lets stay on focus and talk about the racist passages.

The way The New Republic newspaper stacks it, the total number of newsletter editions with racist passages is not 20 but actually 9 newsletters.

Lets look at those 9.

I told you that Congressman Paul was fully out of Congress at the beginning on 1985.

The first racist passage shows up in October 1990. The next month, in November of 1990 a reference to David Duke. The following month, in December, 1990, the author attacks Martin Luther King Jr. Then in February of 1991, another newsletter has passages trashing Dr. King's legacy.

So what we have here, racist passages show up from October of 1990 to February of 1991. 4 out of 5 consecutive months.

A lapse of about a year goes by, 15 months to be exact.

Then, in June 1992, a "Special Edition on Racial Terrorism." focusing on race riots in Los Angeles. One month later, in the very next edition, writing about black rage. The final report where we see racist tones is 6 months later in a passage about the disappearing white majority.

So who authored these racist passages?

In 2007, the libertarian magazine Reason cited an anonymous source close to the 2008 Paul campaign. That source attributed much of the content from those news letters to Lew Rockwell.

Rockwell, whose name appears on the newsletters under the title of Contributing Editor, told The New Republic that he did not write the controversial articles. He said that there were "seven or eight free-lancers involved at various stages"

Here is what you need to know.

Ron Paul has dis-avowed the letters, says he didn't write them, but also says he accepts responsibility because he should have known, since they were published under his name. He is right about that, he was negligent.

But when it comes to the controversy over these newsletters, I am left with one nagging question about the report that first broke this story in 1997.

I found, when researching this story that back in 1997 the original author of The New Republic article, James Kirchick, explained that most of the newsletters had no byline.

Specifically, none of those racist newsletters had a byline, says Kirchick, except for one.

One newsletter that contained the byline of someone else, not Congressman Paul.

But Kirchick fails to disclose two very important things: who's name was in that byline, and which article they wrote.

He only states that the mystery writer wrote "One special edition" of the Ron Paul Report.

The only special edition I can find is the 1992 article, "A Special Report on Racial Terrorism."

Why is that important? Because this edition of the newsletter that is most often quoted to prove racism.

So does that mean the most racist evidence in these newsletters actually has someone else's name on it?

I don't know, but I'd like to find out.




I have repeatedly tried for 2 weeks to contact The New Republic and James Kirchick to get an answer as to which special report had another author's byline, I'm still waiting to hear back.

And that is Reality Check.

• Category

  News & Politics

[bearcolombia]

Are the voters for establishment candidates revealing they haven't done even one day's research on America's (the world's) future? Most of my family is still voting Obama, but they have no youtube account and some not even a facebook account. Their only access is mainstream TV. People like my own family, I'm sorry to say, are the people that are going to allow the country to keep going in the direction it's going, mainly because they're afraid of radical change.

[Brett9897]

So you are admitting you have no facts thus the need to resort to name calling. I am fine with you admitting that you lost the debate. Have a good day.

[Darrin Dudding]

Swann is unbiased

[LavendarTown]

He should change his "Reality check" segment to "big load of shit". You can't say anything anymore without being turned into Nazi.

[Mick Dagger]

Talk about failing to have the morals to lead? Dr. King was an infamous womanizer... this is a known fact. So now I am a racist for saying that statement of fact?

The real racists that the Ron Paul Newsletter was talking about were the rioters in L.A. throwing bricks into white truckers heads for no better reason than being "White". No one wants to talk about that uncomfortable fact though... do they?

This isn't real journalism. This is one sided, misleading, and embarassing.

[Mick Dagger]

Since when did simply criticizing Martin Luther King become a racist act? What a load of BS. When we lose the right of free speech to critcize the leaders of this country without being labelled as a racist is an un-American day indeed.

[bulletmunchr]

Paul was on Conservative Roundtable in '97 supporting his newsletters. Checkmate.

[angelablass]

In a time where honesty/integrity should trump all other attributes, I say if U can’t even pass the moral test, U shouldn’t even b allowed 2 run:

NEWT cheated wife. I wanna know that something stood n his way when offered the opportunity to cheat/lie, his morals, God, something-nothing stood n his way, which 2 me means when the time comes, he’ll choose what he wants over everything else.

MITT: record flip-flopperr. He’ll always choose what benefits him.

How can u trust they'll do what they say?

[MrCurtisFogle]

This is "True Journalism" For this i say THANK YOU...

[angelablass]

Ben Swan, thank you for being a true journalist and clearing this up for us. You are a hero.

[bearcolombia]

Any 'real' change may be considered radical change to older folks, although they may not be old enough to remember when the constitution was written. They have become products of cold war/big military/trust your government or it's the end of the world propaganda. They'll submit to hypocrisy in exchange for the illusion that security will vanish by changing anything, when the opposite is really true. My family is my responsibility, what about yours?