Campaign Reform: Insights and Evidence

4. Watching the Adwatches

Chapter 4 Watching the Adwatches Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Paul A. Waldman Adwatches have the potential to enhance the quality of campaigns by creating disincentives for candidates to make dubious claims and by inviting a backlash from the knowledgeable citizenry if the ads overstep the line. Adwatches can have undesirable consequences in both areas as well. When adwatches carefully examine the accuracy and fairness ofads, they provide a powerful disincentive for campaigns to lie or launch unfair attacks. When adwatches are performed regularly, they help citizens evaluate not only specific candidate claims but the persuasive process in general. Adwatching emerged in large part as a response on the part of the journalistic community to the 1988 presidential election. Among the reasons that that general election campaign was noteworthy is the fact that for the first time in the television age, ads for one major party presidential candidate lied blatantly. Specifically, Bush's "tank" ad charged falsely that Dukakis had opposed "virtually every defense system we have developed." Among others, the Democrat favored the Trident II submarine and the 05 missile and SSN2l Seawolf attack submarine. "He opposed the Stealth bomber" said the ad, when, in fact, Dukakis supported that project. Another of the Bush ads invited the false inference that Dukakis freed 268 fIrst-degree murderers to rape and kidnap. In fact, four were furloughed and then only after their sentences had been downgraded from "firstdegree murder not eligible for parole." And of these convicts, only one, William Horton. kidnapped and raped (Jamieson 1992). Nor were the Democrats above reproach in 1988. An ad for Dukakis claimed that Bush had cast the "tie-breaking Senate vote to cut Social Security benefits" when instead, the Republican had voted to eliminate a costof -living adjustment in benefits, thus eroding purchasing power but not diminishing the actual level of benefits. Many reporters and editors felt that the Bush campaign successfully focused coverage on distracting issues, By repeating Bush's ads' claims without an accompanying assessment of their accuracy and relevance to governance, the press allowed the campaign to center on the Horton case, the Pledge of Allegiance, and Boston Harbor 106 Watching the Adwatches 107 rather than the emerging savings and loan crisis or the demise ofthe Soviet Union. Consequently, the door was opened for a news format that would critique candidate advertising with two goals in mind: keeping candidates and consultants honest and creating a more informed electorate. In an effort to address this issue, CNN worked with Kathleen Hall Jamieson and a research team at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication to devise a broadcast format for critiquing ads. The primary challenge was to focus viewers' attention on the recontextualization offered by the reporter as opposed to the dynamic visual, verbal, and musical elements of the ad itself. Tests indicated that the most effective format had four basic elements. First, when a portion of the ad was shown, it would be placed in a mock television screen moved to the background and set at an angle to the viewer. Second, a news logo and a notice that this was a political ad for a candidate would be present on screen when the ad was being shown. Third, relevant portions of the ad would be shown with the screen frozen when the reporter commented on a portion ofthe ad. Finally, print correctors such as the words correct,false, or misleading would be placed across the screen when the reporter evaluated an ad's claim. These elements were designed to increase the likelihood that viewers would focus on the reporter's reframing. Adwatching in 1992 As adwatches became common in 1992, consultants surmised that clearly false ads would run the risk of exposure by the press and of subsequent negative effects at the ballot box. Although the level of attack in the 1992 presidential ads was high, so too was the level of accuracy. When distortions occurred, they fell into the category offailing to tell the whole story. So, for example, while as a Clinton ad claimed, Bush did "sign the second biggest tax increase in American history," that act required the complicity of the Democratic Congress. And yes, as another Clinton ad averred, 17,000 Arkansans had moved "from welfare to work" since July 1989. But during that time, noted reporters, the number on the welfare rolls actually increased as new recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children and food stamps replaced the beneficiaries of the Clinton jobs...