WPTA says a political action committee took footage from the ABC affiliate’s newscast and manipulated for use in a political spot.
The television ad was paid for by the Senate Majority PAC, which supports Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly’s run against Republican Mike Braun.
Stations in the Fort Wayne, IN market began running the ad on Wednesday. In it you see WPTA anchor Brien McElhatten giving a report about the race on May 1 but the station claims the footage was edited down from its original version.
According to a report on the station’s site:
As it is edited, the ad excerpts sentences and sentence fragments from the initial report, eliminating the ABC21 citation of the Associated Press. A separate part of the ad, which relies on clips from a WRTV, Indianapolis, news report, does note the AP as a source of certain findings.
Additionally, the ad manipulates video that was part of the original ABC21 report to add graphics that were not broadcast by the television news organization.
Station management says it has objected to the ad and has asked the PAC to change it.