To make this information hit home: Imagine the amount of precious time and effort Kerry would fritter away when under pressure in a National Security Event.
"I'd consider it malpractice in political ad-making not to have the stuff ready and for us to be prepared to be engaged," Devine said. He acknowledged, however, that the ads are announced "to engage in the free media" -- meaning to garner publicity -- regardless of whether they wind up airing.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, said that Kerry aides "shouldn't imply they're going to air something if they're not." But she called the coverage "a failure of journalism to ask the question we ought to ask about every single ad: how much and where."
Two of the Kerry ads released last weekend -- one attacking the Bush administration's handling of flu vaccine, the other accusing the president of a plan to slash Social Security benefits -- have not aired.
Another ad that has not been broadcast responded to a Bush spot that showed Kerry windsurfing in opposite directions by describing American casualties and beheadings in Iraq and accusing the president of running "a juvenile and tasteless attack ad." Still another included footage of a Bush ad slamming Kerry's health care plan, citing media accounts that the Bush attack contained "outright fabrications."
The Kerry campaign has also made small ad buys to draw headlines. On Sept. 25, the Kerry camp released a commercial -- in response to an anti-Kerry ad on terrorism by the independent Progress for America -- that accused Bush of "despicable" and "un-American" politics. It aired only on a Washington cable station.
On Oct. 11, the campaign put out an ad that said: "After nearly four years under George Bush, the middle class is paying the bigger share of America's tax burden and the wealthiest are paying less." A Kerry spokesman said it began airing only yesterday, in Minnesota. An ad about Vice President Cheney and Halliburton has run only five times, in Oregon and Harrisburg, Pa.
This is not about convincing reporters. It's about getting free air-time on the newscasts with ads that never or rarely run as paid ads.
This is a "back door" way of getting a lot of free advertising which the liberal media is more than willing to allow.
The idea is that the reporters will turn around and advertise them for free as a "news" story.
It's a strategy to allow the MSM to contribute to the Kerry campaign, via free media coverage/fawning, under the guise of "news".
No. They view this stuff and the next day it is in the front page news.