PressEthic

For being a New York station, WABC plays an awful lot of campaign ads for the potential governors of New Jersey. On one, you'll see Republican candidate Doug Forrester's wife talking about how they met in middle school. In Democrat Jon Corzine's rebuttal you'll see Forrester's face washed out into a scary Max Headroom blue haze.

Lately, Corzine has run ads accusing Forrester of illegally profiting from his company's pharmaceutical drug sales. To the viewer, the commercial's assertions are presented as fact – the same as any other commercial. But, interestingly, television stations have a greater responsibility to ensure that the claims of commercials for products are truthful than they do for commercials for politicians.

Political attack ads are a part of the political landscape in this country, and a major source of revenue for television. When presidential candidates spend a combined $100 million on commercials, television stations reap a financial windfall.

But should media companies fact check the claims of political commercials before running them? Or is that an impingement on free speech? After all, fact checking alone would not render the controversial Swift Boat Veterans ad mute, because the commercial focused on the opinions of a group of Kerry's fellow veterans.

Media companies need to have clear hard and fast rules regarding the content of commercials that they will air. CBS outraged many liberals by refusing to air a MoveOn.org commercial that criticized the president during the Super Bowl while at the same time airing commercials that supported his policies. If networks are going to refuse political ads instead of just letting the market dictate what they show, then they have a responsibility to let viewers know why they choose to do so. Approving or disapproving the content of an ad is not the same as censorship – it's simply doing what they would do with most any other commercial, and making sure that all claims to fact can be verified.

It's hard to play the role of watchdog when political attack ads are paying your bills. For now, more media outlets should run features like this New York Times feature that investigates the claims made by politicians. A sound media organization wouldn't take what any politician, conservative or liberal, says at a speech at face value. Campaign commercials shouldn't be any different.