Networks Helped Spread McCain's False "Troops" Ad

NY Times:

The number of times Senator John McCain's new advertisement attacking Senator Barack Obama for canceling a visit with wounded troops in Germany last week has been shown fully or partly on local, national and cable newscasts: well into the hundreds.

The number of times that spot actually, truly ran as a paid commercial: roughly a dozen.

Result for Mr. McCain: a public relations coup that allowed him to show his toughest campaign advertisement of the year -- one widely panned as misleading -- to millions of people, largely free, through television news media hungry for political news with arresting visual imagery.

Read the whole story: NY Times

Comments

[LiberalBuzz]

I noticed that. Talk about free advertising for McBush!

Even KO played it twice if I remember correctly and I kept thinking STOP IT!

All shows who think it is a poor ad and an uncivil one should simply refer to it without subjecting all of us to it's lies and slime. After watching it I felt like I had to take a showed to wash off the slime and stink from McBush's ad.

[nellie]

I've heard the ad over and over on progressive radio. I begin to wonder whether it's like inoculating the listener against the ad. Probably not the goal of corporate tv, but when the same thing happens on Randi Rhodes, I have to wonder.

[Gatormouth]

Enforce the Sherman Antitrust Act. Do it, and do it as soon as you possibly can.. If any Democrats in Congress drag their feet, that should become a career ender. Take off the gloves on this one.

[mairs]

And they've got us concentrating on trifles such as this, that don't mean anything to the future of our country. Everyone in the media has gone mad.

[Sweetie4Obama]

That thought has gone through my mind every time I saw (or heard) that ad running on tv or radio. All he has to do is shoot the ad, and the media will run it for free. Wonder if they'll do that with Obama's ads?

[bosshogg]

well the media is his base......­..........­...

[brwnizofmine]

IMHO, if we end up with the likes of John McCain in November, then the MSM will have the accept the role they played in this catastrophe!

[ebanks84]

I guess my original post got scratched so I'll try it again. My good common sense tells me that this was a "rovian" technigue which has been used many times for the rethugs in the past.

You put controversy or a "downright lie" in an ad and the media controls it after that. They take it to the limit by trying to make people think the ad is disengenious. So, guess what? FREE PUBLICITY!

Do you think KR is called the architect for no reason? He knows how to maneuver, slip, slide and slink through any maze and come out the winner, he thinks. But his "hold card" has been peeped by many and he's losing his grip hold on intelligent, eyes wide open people, but the media is still sunk deep in his web of untruths.

Maybe when they wake up like most of the people have, they will be able to see their ignorance and finally revert to being what they should have been in the first place, a "giver of truthful informatio­n."

[PumaAnn]

When the O campaign objects and defends, O is already losing the argument. You don't have to explain if it's evident. In this case, the O reasons given just don't ring true.

But making it into a big news story results in ..... a news story, giving Mac more air time.

This happened in the primaries, too. That's why when O ran ads bashing Hill's health care plan that even upset Edwards, she didn't say much. She didn't want to trigger this type of free advertising for him.

Perhaps the objection tactic will be abandoned by O now.

[mairs]

The reasons O has given don't ring true? Even though they ARE true? I think it has more to do with who your candidate is. If you believe whatever JM says, then I guess O's reasons don't ring true.

[tinarm]

Hey PumaAnn why don't you just pull out your HagenDaz and sit on your couch living in your own dillusional fantasy land for a while. I know there are several of you crazy wild haired nutts out there, but I don't think to many sane Americans really give a darn about your insane supposed logic, which is non-exsistent.

[LiberTLover]

She lost. Seek professional help.

[GuyFawkes]

Broken record, Clintonista.

go write another check to pay off her 20 million dollar debt.

[GuyFawkes]

To quote Margaret Carlson in WAPo: "The only thing HIllary Clinton showed during the primaries was an ability to go negative and play on people's worst fears."

And she voted for the war.

[NoSandwiches]

I have only ever seen McCain ads on my "news" casts. I have only ever seen McCain ads -- never Obama ads. CNN - showed this ad followed by a McCain surrogate telling us how appropriate it was and explaining the message McCain was trying to get out with it...then they cut to breaking news that Obama went to the hospital.
It makes me sick.

[legoh]

This is a travesty.

It doesn't take much common sense to realize that the media is giving McCain free advertising by running his ad under the guise of "reporting",

What is the Obama camp doing about this?

Andrea Mitchell is on record as saying that the ad is not true. Why don't they create a response ad that would be shown everytime the networks show Mccain's lying ad?

[bison2]

The New York Time has yet to call it blatanly wrong. it described it as "one widely panned as misleading­." See Factcheck:

McCain's ad falsely insinuates that Obama canceled his visit because "the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras."

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/snubbing_wounded_troops.html

[bison2]

On Countdown, Olberman slammed the mainstream media for how it handle the ad throughout the day! By giving it free media and not calling it out as blatantly wrong.

[scorpioleidy]

Exactly! Keith is always right on these issues and usually leading the pack in pointing them out. I love Keith---nothing will change that!---but I personally think MSNBC (my favorite channel) has been the worst offender, particularly Chris Matthews & Hardball!

[brwnizofmine]

Morning Joe was even worse than Chris!

[ebanks84]

He and Rachel Maddow are two of the most honest commentators in the media today. And the rethugs hate them so much for bringing them to task. I'm sure he knows a "rovian" ad when he sees one also. The architect of crime has hit it again.

[bison2]

What is the responsiblity of a network for running a negative ad?

[jade7243]

I do not think a network, like MSNBC for example, needs to run the entire ad as a promo to a story where they run the entire before discussing the ad and running the entire ad again to illustrate the comments made by the talking heads about the ad before running the ad again as the promo to the upcoming discussion of the ad where they run the ad to discuss the ad... ALL DAY LONG. And no where in the "discussion" is the fact that the ad is blatantly false discussed. Nor are any of the claims made by McCain which are demonstrably false discussed.

Instead we get a rehash of all of Obama's latest "arrogant, elitist, presumptuous, overconfident, cocky" actions which amount to admitting being one of the last men standing for President (odds 50-50, either Obama or McCain will win) or meeting with the Treasury Sec'y (the economic equivalent of "commanders on the ground" is pretending to be President.

Yeah, right.

[jsinclair]

None. There is a desperate need for standards in network news, but there are none.

This is a new twist on an old Rove tactic: "Give your Republican talking points (i.e. your smears and lies about your opponent) to your friends in the media and they will be repeated until the public thinks they're true."

With ads, its even easier. Rove 102: "Craft your lies as an 'ad' with effective graphics and words to attract the media. They will play it over and over. No matter what they say about it, the negative images will stick and eventually undermine your opponent's credibility with voters. Just as if they were TRUE!!!"

Not only is it propaganda, not only is it lies, but it's disseminated for FREE and discussed as if its actually IMPORTANT!

Brilliant. Evil, and despicable, but brilliant.

[barackobama4prez]

They did the same thing in the primaries. It's free advertising for the broke rethuglican.

[Cedman]

I agree the media is pro McCain. Morning Joe spent the majority of the show pedaling the Obama is arrogant (uppity) narrative by talking abut a WaPo article by Danna Milbank that it now appears was out of context. FOX could claim that Obama got much more coverage in this instance and they would be right . However, the coverage was 95% negative. Regarding that McCain ad, true journalism would have determine if it were true and then made the call to criticize or support its accuracy. What we get instead is repeated airing of the crap and then someone from the left and right to argue about it.