October 29, 2006

Not Our Finest Hour

Every couple of years, the business of advertising takes a nose dive. Because it's the political season. So, in the name of who-knows-what, advertising is created that is irresponsible, inaccurate, misleading, not credible, and the subject of wide-spread and totally justified criticism.

While much attention has been given to the "Call me, Harold" spot against Harold Ford in Tennessee, I'd say the prize goes to the one that spends 30 seconds accusing an incumbent of making a phone sex call and charging it to his state's taxpayers. What, in fact, occurred was that a staffer of the office holder mis-dialed a number by one digit, got connected to the sex line, and hung up. The call lasted only a matter of seconds. Some sex!

My home telephone number is only one digit off from a local hospital. It is not uncommon for me to receive hospital calls. What happened to that staffer is totally understandable.

There is no there there.

But that didn't stop his opponent from making a spot that isn't just misleading, it's inaccurate and potentially incredibly damaging to the candidate.

Frankly, I don't understand why the media cannot require comprehensive substantiation for any claims made in political advertising...and, why the media cannot then choose not to accept advertising that it deems not adequately substantiated in fact.

Sure that would put more work on the media. But they could require advertising meet earlier deadlines in order to allow time for the research to be done. And, let us not forget, the media make a pile of money on political advertising.

Proper due diligence would diminish significantly the black eye our industry gets every two years. And, as we slowly recover from the bruises, along comes the next election cycle.

More importantly, proper due diligence would help voters get more accurate, responsible information so that they could make informed, intelligent decisions. After all, we're talking about the future of the country...the future of the world.