AP, foundation offer campaign finance information

The Associated Press and the Sunlight Foundation, which was created to improve government transparency, are sponsoring a series of webinars to help reporters deal with the new rules governing campaign finance in this year's elections. The last one will be held from 4 to 5 p.m. EDT Thursday, Aug. 18. To register, click here.

At the last webinar, on Monday, Bill Allison of Sunlight said they expect lots of spending by outside interests because of the recent Supreme Court decision allowing corporations and unions to spend directly on advertising that advocates the election or defeat of a candidate, as long as the spending is independent of the candidate. Allison said most corporations are likely to spend through other entities to avoid damaging their brands with voters. (UPDATE, Aug. 18: Media companies are giving. Hubbard Broadcasting of St. Paul gave $100,000 to Minnestota Forward, a new independent-expenditure group "that is supporting several Republican and Democratic candidates," Joe Strupp reports for Media Matters for America, and News Corp., the parent of Fox News, just gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association. Party.)

Some interest groups are already running ads, and the National Republican Congressional Committee has released a list of districts in which it will advertise. Many are represented by rural Democrats. The outside spending will also occur in state legislative races where control of chambers is at stake, as Tom Humphrey of the Knoxville News Sentinel reports. And don't forget Internet ads, which the Natural Resources Defense Council is coupling with radio in an effort to get six moderate senators to support a bill on climate change. UPDATE, Aug. 20: FactCheck.org finds fault with outside groups' ads on both sides in the California governor's race.

Advertising purchases of more than $10,000 that name a federal candidate, and the names of contributors of $1,000 or more toward the effort, must be reported to the Federal Election Commission within 24 hours. Independent expenditures, which advocate election or defeat, must be reported to the FEC within 48 hours (or 24 hours close to the election). See http://www.fec.gov/. Another source of information about all campaigns buying broadcast ads is the political public-inspection file at stations and cable-TV companies. Developing relationships with people at these outlets may enable you to get the information over the telephone without having to go to the station.

Other topics covered in the webinar include: changes wrought by the Supreme Court decision; where to find campaign-finance data, including some sites we had not heard of; how money is raised, and what that says about a campaign; why spending is also important to track; and the relationship of lobbying to campaigns. As Sharon Theimer of AP said, this is not just a document-driven beat, but a source-driven beat. This writer has decades of experience covering political campaigns and is available to help rural journalists; just e-mail al.cross@uky.edu.