Media outlets forecast more political ads and explain how to fact check them
The Denver Post reports today that we can expect an intermittent or constant flow of political ads starting now and ending who knows when. Not surprising, but it’s something people should know
In some parts of the country, like Scranton, the post-election political ads already hit the airwaves, according to a professor quoted in the Post article.
The anti-union and anti-environmental group sponsoring these ads was clever to realize that their first-TV-ads-after-the-election-FLOOD would get noticed by ad-hating reporters, like the one who wrote today’s Post story, and they would get even more publicity, an earned-media bump, as it’s called.
It seems that I’m in a tiny minority who admits to liking the ads, even though I hate them, of course, for what they do to our political culture, which is basically kill it.
Still, if we’ve gotta have them, I’d rather see a political ad than an ad for used cars or something.
During the election, and I should have pointed this out previously, 9News actually posted a how-to guide to do your own political “truth test,” like the kind 9News does, fact-checking political ads.
The guide offers basic parameters for evaluating a political ad and an organization sponsoring it, including websites for tax information about charities, campaign finance figures, congressional votes, and such.
You gotta hand it to 9News for taking the time to put together the guide. I mean, any and all efforts to empower people to get involved in politics is obviously in the public interest. As 9News’ Adam Schrager has told me, fact-checking an ad is not so hard to do.