The level of political advertising during this year’s election cycle isexpected to break records, and television stations will be the primebeneficiaries, collecting about $600 million in political advertisingrevenue. Considering that many campaign ads are misleading to voters, TVjournalists should devote considerable resources to evaluating the accuracyof such advertising.
In an informal review of nightly network news over the last decade, FAIRfound that stories analyzing the accuracy of campaign commercials were rare.In fact, when media did turn their attention to political ads, they oftenfocused on the tactical advantages or disadvantages of the ads (“Is thecandidate going negative here?”), rather than assessing the ad’s accuracy.
ABC‘s World News Tonight featured its first “ad watch” segment in the 1996 national election (7/8/96)– a look at Clinton campaign ad highlighting candidate Bob Dole’s comments questioning nicotine’s addictiveness. Anchor Peter Jennings informed viewers that “you may have already noticed political ads on your television, which means it is time for us to start Ad Watch”—but that was the last ad watch segment World News Tonight aired in that election season. In the 2000 election season, World News Tonight has so far run only one ad watch segment (1/7/00).
The other networks have done even worse. According to a search of the Nexis database, CBS Evening News has done only one segment (3/6/96) assessing the accuracy of political ads since 1992, when they ran several during the presidential campaign. NBC Nightly News has aired no ad watch features since 1992.
On those rare occasions when the networks do report on political ads, theiraccuracy is often not addressed. As Stephen Hess of the Brooking Institutecommented on CNN‘s Inside Politics (11/26/98): “Ad-watches were a wonderfulintervention. The media did it itself, and now you turn on the typicalad-watch and what it doesn’t tell you is this: Is this commercial true orfalse? It tells you why the journalist thinks that commercial was made.It’s all about the strategy and the tactics behind it, rather than the basicquestion of are we getting the truth.”
A study by media researchers published in the Harvard’s InternationalJournal of Press/Politics (Fall 1996) found that 50 percent of network adwatches in 1992 contained no critical analysis of the of ad content. As theresearchers point out, stories about ads that rerun the ad without offeringcritical analysis merely give free publicity to the campaign.
Unfortunately, for some viewers political ads are a more common source ofinformation about a campaign than news programs. For example, the Center forPublic Integrity reported that during the recent Senate primary campaign inNew Jersey, television stations in New York and Philadelphia made $21million from political ads. In the last two weeks of the campaign, citizenswatching top Philadelphia and New York TV stations were 10 times more likelyto see a campaign ad than a campaign news story.
This scenario is a profitable arrangement for broadcasters, who can reap thebenefits of the current campaign finance system while ignoring anyresponsibility to present factual information that might undercut thelucrative advertisements.
One exception to the network trend of infrequent and uncritical ad featuresis CNN. Throughout the decade CNN has aired numerous reports assessing theaccuracy of campaign commercials. Usually reported by CNN seniorcorrespondent Brooks Jackson, the features virtually always address thecommercials from the standpoint of truthfulness.
ACTION: Please contact the news networks and ask that they include regularfeatures that assess the accuracy of the content of political advertisements. Stress that you would like to see critical scrutiny of thetruthfulness of the claims made in the ads, and not just a discussion of such advertisements’ strategic value.
CONTACT:
NBC Nightly NewsPhone: 212-664-4971 or 202-885-4259Fax: 202-362-2009Nightly@nbc.com
ABC World News TonightPhone: 212-456-4040Fax: 212-456-2795netaudr@abc.com
CBS Evening NewsPhone: 212-975-3691, 202 457-4385Fax: 212-975-1893audsvcs@cbs.com
You might also contact CNN to commend them for their regular attention tothe accuracy of political ads.
CNN— Washington BureauPhone: 202-898-7900Fax: 202-898-7923cnn.feedback@cnn.com
