Interesting to read in the Washington Post on Sunday that Television viewers in crucial Midwest states got more political information in the weeks leading up to the midterm elections from campaign advertisements than from news coverage. In the seven markets studied, newscasts aired almost 4 1/2 minutes of paid political ads during a 30-minute broadcast, while only offering 1 minute 43 seconds of election news coverage. The study was done by the Midwest News Index, a project of the University of Wisconsin's NewsLab. It studied major markets in Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin. Apparently most news coverage focused on political strategy, with far less examining policy differences among candidates and more than 10 percent of news stories were about or featured political ads. It’s kinda like “The Medium is the message.” Yet in this case, I guess “The Media is the message, which is all about the Media!” If you know what I mean!!!
Because I'm just as corrupt as the next guy!
George you can add Omaha, Nebraska in that media assessment. The political hacks in their political ads spent millions throwing mud and old guys like me turned the news off. The local news stations did keep all of us up on how much Pete Rickets spent in his loosing bid for the US Senate. Two years to go before we have to live through the next wave, it's not long enough.
Posted by: Roy | November 28, 2006 11:26 AM | Permalink to Comment