Ford, Carter, Cronkite support better political campaigns

Calling it a way to "break the chokehold that money and ads have on our political system," former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford and former television anchorman Walter Cronkite are urging the television industry to open the airwaves to brief nightly issue forums for candidates in 2000. Carter, Ford, and Cronkite are affiliated with the Alliance for Better Campaigns (ABC), a Washington DC based public interest group that seeks to improve elections by promoting campaigns in which the most useful information reaches the greatest number of citizens in the most engaging ways.

Jimmy Carter

Walter Cronkite

Gerald Ford

Specifically, broadcasters are being asked to make good on a recommendation by a presidential advisory panel that calls on television stations to voluntarily air at least five minutes of "candidate centered discourse" every night during the month preceding the primary and general elections. The national networks could devote time within their newscasts or elsewhere in their program schedule to a nightly mix of interviews, issue statements and mini-debates by presidential candidates; local stations could do the same for candidates in federal, state, and local races in their markets. Citizens would get a more substantive alternative to the attack ads and sound bites that dominate politics on television. Candidates, including those without bulging war chests, would get a cleaner shot at putting their ideas before the public, and perhaps, on Election Day, we’d hold a vote, not a boycott.

THE PROBLEM: TOO MANY ADS, TOO LITTLE NEWS COVERAGE

Surveys show that Americans get the bulk of their information from television. When it comes to information about political candidates, the public has consistently chosen news programming as their most reliable source of fair and unbiased information. The public least trusts political advertising recognizing it for what it is - one sided and manipulative. Unfortunately, the number of political ads on television is rising dramatically, while the amount of political news coverage is decreasing, both at the network and local station levels. The result? People are inundated with political ads, which they do not trust and which fuels their collective cynicism. With little useful information on which to make their voting decisions, many citizens fail to vote. Meanwhile, the television industry pockets big bucks from the sale of political advertising, while failing to fulfill a major obligation they have under the 1934 Federal Communications Act - to operate in "the public interest."

TELEVISION: PART OF THE PROBLEM, PART OF THE SOLUTION

Even with today’s fragmented audiences, network television remains far ahead of the competition in terms of its audience share. Cable companies and other news broadcasts do not even come close to reaching the numbers that the major networks do. Broadcasting executives also know that political advertising is a surefire way for television stations to make money. This year alone, television stations are expected to rake in more than $600 million from political advertising, coming from the candidates themselves, parties, and interest groups.

Conversely, networks are providing less political news coverage. According to the Center for Media and Public Affairs, the average sound bite that was shown on a network newscast from a presidential candidate was 8.2 seconds in 1996. Compare this to coverage in 1968, when the average sound bite was 43 seconds long. Even when television does cover campaigns, they tend to focus on strategy rather than the actual issues. More and more, open discussion about important issues is "disappearing from the public square of broadcast television" (Alliance for Better Campaigns News Release, June 13, 2000).

REFOCUSING THE LENS OF TV

Enter the Gore Commission and the 5/30 standard. Formally known as the Advisory Committee on the Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters, the Gore Commission (which reported directly to Vice-President Gore, hence, the Gore Commission) consisted of industry executives, scholars, and public interest group representatives. It was formed in 1997 by President Clinton to ascertain whether or not the television industry needed to accept new public interest obligations given that the government granted broadcasters, free of charge, billions of dollars worth of spectrum space to assist in the conversion to digital technology. In the eyes of the law, broadcasters are seen as trustees of public airwaves and are obliged to serve the "public interest, convenience, and necessity" (Communications Act of 1934 and Telecommunications Act of 1996). The Gore Commission’s recommendation was that television stations broadcast five minutes of "candidate-centered discourse" each night during the 30 days prior to any election. The format of those five minutes was left to the discretion of the individual broadcaster. It could be integrated into the nightly news, or shown at another time in between the hours of 5-11:30 PM. The decision of what to cover was also left in the hands of the broadcasters. Local stations could focus on local races or state or national elections. The goal is to allow candidates a medium to discuss issues in depth, and allow all candidates, regardless of the size of their war chest, an opportunity to get their message out. The commission hopes that since the standard was "crafted in a way that ensured that stations would have maximum flexibility and face minimal burdens, it would be widely accepted throughout the industry." However, since this is a voluntary standard, very few broadcasters have conformed to the standard. In fact, the majority of the industry, including major networks, has disregarded the plan.

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