Tell the FCC to Shine a Light on Political Attack Ads 





Demand Your Right to Know: 
 Who's Running That Ad?




Dear Gambia-L Friend,
If you flip on your local television station and watch for an hour or so, you’re likely to see at least one: a political ad that attacks a candidate for public office.
If you live in a “battleground state,” you’ll see as many as 12 political ads an hour.
Iowa just experienced this on-air onslaught of misinformation, offering the rest of us a preview of what television viewing will be like across the nation as Election Day 2012 nears.
While we may not be able to stop this barrage of ads, Free Press has a plan to expose their funders. We need you to take action right now to get this campaign off the ground:
 Broadcasters Must Tell Us Who Is Funding Attack Ads
These ads will swallow up more air time in 2012 than campaign coverage on local television newscasts. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision unleashed countless millions of corporate dollars for spending on campaign ads. But broadcasters aren’t using this newfound revenue to beef up news operations and ensure in-depth coverage of candidates and election-year issues.
Instead, companies like News Corp., Viacom and the Sinclair Broadcast Group are lining their pockets with ad money from benevolent-sounding front groups like Concerned Taxpayers of America, Make Us Great Again and Citizens for a Responsible Government. And they rarely inform viewers about the wealthy individuals and corporations that fund these groups.
The FCC has proposed fixing that by requiring broadcasters to make this financial information available online. But the agency won’t act unless it hears from you:
Tell the FCC: Force Broadcasters to Put Political Files Online
The FCC already requires broadcasters to keep information about political advertising in "public inspection files" that people can examine. These files contain the names of groups that purchase political advertising time, the cost involved and the names of executives at these organizations. But these files are often tucked away in dusty cabinets at news stations and are difficult for the public to access. The FCC is now weighing whether to make broadcasters transfer this information to the Internet, where anyone can find the data. 
Media companies are projected to rake in more than $3 billion in revenues from political ads in 2012. But they are reluctant to take this basic step toward transparency.1
In a recently filed comment to the FCC, the National Association of Broadcasters urged the agency to drop its effort to make it easy for the public to ferret out this information online. Another group of broadcasters warned the FCC against any effort “to stimulate such examinations” of public files.2
With your help we can push the FCC to require that broadcasters put all of this political information online now, before misleading political ads muddy our elections any further.
The FCC is poised to move in the right direction. Give it the push it needs.
Thank you,
Timothy Karr 
 Senior Director of Strategy 
 Free Press
P.S. Free Press is kicking off an ambitious campaign to track the role of the media in the 2012 elections and push for vital policy reforms in D.C. and across the nation. You can help us hit the ground running with a donation of $20 or more.
1. Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group estimates that candidates, political parties and “independent groups” will shell out between $2.5 and $3.3 billion to buy TV ads during the 2012 elections. That’s a 20–57 percent increase over the approximately $2.1 billion that was spent during the 2008 presidential election.
2. For more on the FCC and political ad spending, read my article at the Huffington Post, “Iowa Kicks Off the Media’s Mud Season,” Jan. 4, 2012: http://act2.freepress.net/go/8026?akid=3173.9892567.9M2WFH&t=9
    
  

  
 


  
 


  
Free Press is a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. Learn more at www.freepress.net




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