Thursday, October 27, 2005

KYTV: ANTI-BLUNT AD TURNED DOWN

A follow to our Wednesday posting about some local television stations turning down an anti-Roy Blunt ad created by the Public Campaign Action Fund.

The PCAF ad links Blunt, the southwest Missouri congressman, to Rep. Tom DeLay. PCAF's David Donnelly said KYTV and KSPR -- Springfield's NBC and ABC affiliates, respectively -- "caved in to Blunt's bullying."

But KYTV General Manager Mike Scott said that's baloney. "We were in the process of turning down the ad" when Blunt's legal team called, Scott said Thursday.

The ad was rejected by KYTV, Scott said, because rules governing issue ads are not the same as those covering candidate ads. "Candidate ads can make baseless claims," Scott said, "and they're protected." But a station that airs an issues ad with allegedly specious claims can be held liable for those falsehoods, Scott said.

"Normally, we don't have to deal with these issues until even-numbered years," Scott joked. The campaign seasons, they grow longer with every cycle.

(Candidly, we're only interested in what KYTV has to say about this ad. KSPR may also have rejected the spot, but it's the whole "tree falls in a forest" issue with the ABC affiliate.)

What do you think? Should KYTV have rejected the PCAF ad?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"We were in the process of turning down the ad"

Well,let's deconstuctionalistism this little gem.

He's saying that KYTV thinks saying "No" is a bigger deal than a four letter word. "Process" is a big deal when your guy gets caught in some flakey deals with his hands in someone elses pockets -- process is important. And we got Billy'sBoyToyRoy to protect out there.

As I recall they accepted plenty of ads from the Swift Boat Liars, so they have already established that truth is not a part of the "process" if he claims that the ad is untrue.

And if he does claim the ad is untrue how does he know? Because some of Roy's mouthpieces told him so? Or his own crack newsteam? Or Roy from Republic?

Naw .. .this is just typical Ozarks good-old-boy'ism. Here no evil and speak no evil when it comes to the guy who gasve you a basket full on money in the last frequency allocation debacle. We should set a real newsguy onto this story, someone like Michael David Vincent, perhaps.

Run the damn ad ... or go here and watch it ... http://dailykos.com/tag/public%20campaign%20action%20fund