A reader directs our attention to this story in the Los Angeles Times about the way campaign spending in the just-concluded election enriched TV stations especially. Money quote:
The air war resembled an arms race, with both Republican and Democratic campaigns frantically pumping more money into advertising to keep up with their competitors….
About two-thirds of the money – an estimated $2 billion – was used to purchase airtime from local television stations.
Pressroom’s correspondent observes that the Times story
made me think about how well Journal Communications must have done in the just-completed election, with tv stations in both Milwaukee and Green Bay and their radio holdings, as well as the stations in other states.
Of course, there were no complaints in the paper about the obscene amounts of money coming into the state from outside sources that had a dramatic impact on the legislative races, especially in Green Bay and Milwaukee areas were several seats flipped.
I am sure it had nothing to do with them raking in money hand over fist.
It’s a theme that’s been raised before by advocates for campaign finance reform – an umbrella that covers a wide range of measures, ranging from disclosure of donors for purportedly non-partisan “issue ads” that attack or praise candidates at election time, to public financing of elections, to a mandate for free airtime for candidates. Pressroom isn’t going to weigh in today on the policy merits of specific campaign finance reform proposals. But the question of whether pecuniary interests color press coverage of the subject is a provocative one.
I did a cursory search of the Journal Sentinel‘s online archive and found a few stories and comments that looked at the way campaign money was raised and spent. And there was this editorial, as well as this column from Mike Nichols, both criticizing the veil of secrecy that shields so much of the money spent on attack ads.
I asked Jay Heck of Common Cause in Wisconsin about it all. In an e-mail he told me:
I didn’t find the Journal Sentinel any more or less energetic about coverage of money spent on TV ads by outside groups than any other news entity. …
Generally TV coverage of the money being spent on TV was (not surprisingly) lacking. An exception was the Fox affiliate in Milwaukee [WITI Channel 6] that aired a very good segment in late October on the lack of disclosure of much of the special interest group spending.
I have long been aware of the link between the Journal Sentinel and WTMJ but have not found that the coverage of money in politics in general and about spending on TV in particular in the MJS has been any less vigorous as a consequence of that link.
I think the more accurate characterization is that coverage of special interest money spending in general and about the spending on TV in particular is overall somewhat lacking and without much analysis or context. But that applies across the board.
Mike McCabe of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign chimed in as well:
There is no doubt that the owners of television stations have a huge financial conflict of interest that affects how they cover campaign finance issues. The U.S. is the only major democracy in the world that does not have some system for providing free air time for candidates around election time. You never hear any discussion of this on the Sunday morning news programs or during the evening newscasts. There is a reason for that. Political advertising is a cash cow for the TV stations. Which also explains why they don’t report much of anything on campaign finance issues generally or the obscene amounts of money spent on the 2010 elections specifically.
The most recent New York Times/CBS News poll showed that the overwhelming majority of Americans want election spending limited, with 86% saying candidate spending should be limited and 72% saying spending by outside interest groups should be limited by law. The poll also showed 92% support full disclosure of election advertising and where the money for the ads came from. These findings went totally unreported here in Wisconsin as far as I could tell. I’m sure they didn’t get much of any coverage anywhere else, either. It’s not hard to understand why you don’t see stories about such things on the TV news.
And now, some other news and notes from the media world, most of them pre-Thanksgiving leftovers:
So Will They Change the Name to Publisher? Editor and Publisher, the trade publication of the newspaper industry that Nielsen closed and then sold, has fired its staff and will now take content mostly from “industry experts,” Folio reports. Comments on the move range from the skeptical to the cynical.
Just how bad is it in the rural newspaper business? Pretty bad says the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky.
At lefty Salon.com, blogger Glenn Greenwald shows no fear or favor, criticizing a story in the similarly inclined The Nation.
Speaking of Salon, the Wall Street Journal reports (sorry, you’ll need a subscription to read the whole thing) the pioneer of online journalism is struggling financially and seeking fresh cash.
Non-profit ProPublicalaunches a paid-access site, reports Paid Content. Also from PC: Don’t blame the Web for newspapers’ declines.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. is coming out with a digital-only paper for the iPad, says David Carr at the New York Times. Still, as Paid Content (again) notes:
The problem for anybody wanting to believe that the iPad is a newspaper or magazine replacement is that it is not. It’s a digital device, which means people will get easily distracted and start playing Scrabble, or listening to music or whatever else one can get up to on a crowded carriage.
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