Today I read the following USA Today summary of a recent Wired Magazine “Spam” piece on Ron Paul. Supposedly, someone, somewhere has been sending out Ron Paul email spam. Who knows who it is or why. Needless to say, this activity is a very small portion of the Internet presence of Ron Paul. USA Today, however, tried to make it out to be much more than it is.

Read the article here.

USA Today tried to make it seem as though ALL of Ron Paul’s Internet support was based on “criminal spam” - read the article it is pretty freaking ridiculous if you ask me. The fact that someone gets paid to write some slop like this is beyond stupid. One easy way to know RP’s support is legitimate is to check the Alexa Rankings of key Ron Paul sites. They are all headed pretty consistently upward. You cannot spam that.

So, in my frustration and annoyance, I decided to do some research. USA Today is owned by Gannett Company, Inc. a publicly-traded company (ticker = GCI). They own a number of newspapers and are in a significantly declining industry (traditional print and broadcast media). The USA Today is their crown jewel asset. Check out their wikipedia page.

They also own a local TV station in Washington D.C. I can only imagine what they broadcast there. (I don’t even want to know).

So, anyway, I think they may dislike Paul out of spite based on the decline of their business and the popularity, in general of the Internet and the New Media.

Check out their five year stock chart

The stock topped in early-2004 (along with top of our Iraq War “victory”) at about 90 and has since slow-motion-crashed to the low 40s. It stands at 42.13 as I write, which is less than 50% of the value three short years ago.

So anyway, my point is, this crap company is going down hill fast. Their media influence is waning, they are losing out to better (more truthful) and more creative content online and they are pissed. Ron Paul represents the Net and the New Era of Liberty and they don’t like the New Era of Liberty - so they try to dog him.

They are scrubs, headed down hill fast. I truly would not mind at all if they go bankrupt and disappear from the consciousness of America at the hands of more enlightened info and better competition (i.e. actual intellectual honesty and journalistic standards).

Here’s to a Put Option on GCI!!

Filed under: Politics, Social Mood, Economics, Entertainment