Friday, March 20, 2015
Rita Allen Foundation Study Addresses Impact of Political Advertising
A new study by Philly Political Media Watch finds that during evening newscasts leading up to the 2014 midterm elections the airtime given to political ads dwarfed stories about political issues by a ratio of 45:1.
The study — paid for, in part, by the Democracy Fund and the Rita Allen Foundation, and with analysis provided by the Sunlight Foundation — examined newscasts in the Philadelphia viewing area for the last two months of the 2014 campaign and found that the vast majority of political advertising aired during local nightly news programs. But while those broadcasts may have been packed with political ads, the news segments were largely devoid of political issues....