"Local television stations, suffering from steep declines in ad spending, are getting a much-needed shot in the arm from lobbying groups trying to sway the national debate over health care," The Wall Street Journal reports. "Altogether, groups on various sides of the debate have spent an average of about $1 million a day in recent weeks, analysts say."
Evan Tracey, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group at TNS, a research firm owned by ad holding company WPP, told reporters Suzanne Vranica and Alicia Mundy that $41 million has been spent this year on local spots about helth care. "If the debate over health-care legislation drags into the fall, as now seems likely, the figure could rise to $250 million, Mr. Tracey says." (Read more)
We hope the news departments at local stations will realize they have an obligation to give their viewers more than paid, misleading sound bites. But given our research on similar situations, we're not very hopeful. As James Rainey noted in the Los Angeles Times yesterday, even CNN cut off coverage of a key senator as he was about to explain details of a potential compromise. Anchor Tony Harris said Democrat Max Baucus of Montana was "a little bit in the weeds," then cut to an update on Lance Armstrong's tiff with a fellow bicyclist. Many outlets, particularly Fox News, over-emphasized "the potential failure of President Obama to make this week's deadline," which he set, for Congress to act.
"America has a health-care crisis, yes, and so do broad segments of the media, particularly television news," Rainey opined. "They have transformed the story of how to fix an overpriced and inadequate care system into an overheated political scrum, with endless chatter about deadlines and combatants and very little about the kind of medical care people get and how it might change." He cited findings of the Project for Excellence in Journalism that the coverage has been dominated by politics and legislative strategy. (Read more)
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