subject: Different kinds of forms in Issue Advocacy [print this page] The second issue for stations is how to cover these ads. If one side is substantially outspending the other on broadcast ads, as the MBT Shoes tobacco industry did in the campaign against the McCain bill, do the newscasters of the stations drawing revenue from the ads have an obligation to ensure that viewers are not misled? In other words, is this a circumstance that invites monitoring of ads in local news? Similarly, one might ask whether news reporters should help viewers make sense of the barrage of candidate ads in the fall of election years.
