With a heated election and a lot of undecided voters, local TV stations stand to see big profits from campaigns looking to tip the scales in their favor by airing political ads. According to an opinion piece in the Denver Post by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, co-founder of FactCheck.org, the TV stations in Denver are doing a particularly good job helping voters see through the increasing spin.
Denver broadcasters deserve praise not only for reality testing political claims, but for also doing it well. Our research shows that when stations reduce the size of the ad on the screen, clearly identify it as political content and stamp the corrections onto the boxed ad, voters remember the reporters’ analysis better than they do when the critiqued ad is played full screen.
You can watch what two Denver stations are doing to fact check political ads after the jump.
This is the “Truth Test” from NBC affiliate KUSA. In it they reduce the size of the spot and add a graphic over the ad’s claims based on whether its true, false or somewhere in between:
Below is FOX affiliate KDVR‘s “Fact or Fiction?” feature where they reduce the size of the ad on screen and stamp whether it’s fact or fiction:
You can read the entire article by clicking here.
[poynter.org]