In the toxic stew of negativity that political advertising
has become, it’s easy to pay attention only to the ads that make your candidate
look good (or, far more likely, that make the candidate you don’t like look
evil) than it is to actually listen to what is being said and attempt to
analyze it. Many folks are content to
mute the sound, change the channel, or simply ignore political ads they don’t
like.
To most of us, the ads are a nuisance. For the TV stations in the so-called
battleground states of Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia,
the political advertising is a gold mine, a cash windfall that’s kept them
going through tough economic times.
A nonpartisan watchdog group called “Free Press” recently
analyzed political advertising and local news coverage in Milwaukee, Tampa,
Cleveland, Las Vegas, and Charlotte – markets where political ad spending has
been the heaviest.
The not-surprising conclusion is that none of the TV
stations in those markets, which raked in millions upon millions in political
advertising, provided any local news stories investigating or even naming the
special interests behind the ads, and did no investigation as to whether the
ads were truthful in any way.
In the two weeks prior to the June 5th recall
election in Wisconsin, no Milwaukee TV station spent ANY time doing analysis of
the political ads they took money to run.
Yet the folks at Free Press say the Milwaukee stations found time to air
53 local news segments on Justin Bieber.
It’s a shame they didn’t check the Madison TV market. You don’t need me to tell you how many
political ads have run on the airwaves here since the recall elections last
summer, the gubernatorial recall this past June, and now the Tammy/Tommy race
and all the Obama/Romney ads that clutter the Madison TV airwaves.
If they did, they would have found one station – and only
one – doing any sort of fact-checking on the barrage of political ads. Despite the millions of political ad dollars
that have flowed into the coffers of the local CBS, ABC, NBC, and Fox TV
stations (for those who aren’t aware, WISC-TV 3 has a contract to do the local
news for WMSN Fox 47 – and please don’t confuse Fox TV with Fox News) only one
news organization – WISC-TV’s news team – does any fact-checking.
The photo at the top of this post, which I stole from the
WISC-TV website and am using here without permission, is a picture of WISC-TV’s
Jessica Arp doing one of her many “Reality Check” segments. She’s been doing frequent Reality Checks as
part of the Channel 3 local news segments for years, and she’s damn good at
it. She’s meticulously fair and analyzes
ads from both candidates in a race, or both sides of an issue.
The other local TV news operations don’t do this. They should.
And all three of them should do reality checks not only on the political
ads, but also on the special interests spending untold millions to create and
buy the air-time for these ads.
Full disclosure: Jessica has been a friend for years, and my
wife was a colleague during her days at Channel 3. Right now, Jess is on a well-deserved
vacation with her husband, crawling around ancient pyramids in Chichen Itza,
Mexico, and soaking up some sun. So she
may not see this post. I hope her
friends will tell her about it when she gets back home, because she deserves
credit for doing what no other reporter in Madison TV is doing.
Kudos also to the ownership and management of Channel 3, for
underwriting the cost of doing these reality checks and supporting the effort
to inform the electorate.
I thought they were alone on this and yes, Jessica does an admirable job....too bad other stations have not done so, but seeing this, they may...let's only hope...for Diogenes sake may they help us to find an honest candidate
ReplyDeletechenlina20160422
ReplyDeletegucci handbags
michael kors
nike air max
ray bans
coach outlet store online
abercrombie outlet
air force 1
toms outlet
michael kors handbags
michael kors handbags
nike store outlet
oakley vault
coach factorty outlet
rolex submariner
cheap jordans
michael kors uk
michael kors outlet
michael kors canada
christian louboutin shoes
coach outlet
michael kors outlet online
christian louboutin shoes
toms shoes
coach outlet store online clearances
louis vuitton outlet
louis vuitton outlet stores
insanity workout
true religion jeans
adidas shoes
nike basketball shoes
louis vuitton handbags
replica watches
fitflops shoes
michael kors outlet
michael kors outlet
michael kors handbags
louis vuitton outlet stores
beats by dr dre
coach factory outlet
ray bans
as