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FCC To Require TV Stations To Post Rates For Campaign Ads
bs0d3 writes "The FCC has voted to require broadcast TV stations to post online advertising rates they charge political candidates and advocacy groups. The vote came despite strong opposition from many broadcasters. 'By law, television stations offer political candidates advertising rates that are much lower than those offered to other advertisers.' Advocates argue the public should have easy access to information about how much candidates and other groups are spending on television to suck in voters. 'Network-affiliated stations in the top 50 markets will have six months to comply. For all others, the deadline is 2014.'"
This is technically true, but that's not the story. The story isn't that the rates will be available, it's that we'll know how much candidates spend, and where they're spending it.
The rates themselves are, by law, the lowest rate that the stations charge (to avoid stations charging different rates based on whether they support that candidate) - so that's not really that informative. It's actually knowing that Candidate X purchased 800 points of TV time in Market A and 1200 points in Market B that is interesting. Currently, this information is available, but only by driving to the stations during business hours to view them, which is of course not very useful.
"'By law, television stations offer political candidates advertising rates that are much lower than those offered to other advertisers"
This sounds really bizarre to those of us who live in places where, by law, television statements may not carry political advertising.
We sort-of have this theory that elections should be won, not bought. But only sort-of, mind, because money obviously still makes a difference. In my council ward for example I'm not allowed to spend more than a few hundred pounds getting elected - this is trivial for me, I just write a cheque, but it could be a struggle for others.
I like this but I wish the FEC would grow a pair and make PACs and SuperPacs identify their donation sources. Tehy all have these cutesy names that mean nothing, you will hear things like "this ad paid for by Americans for an America in the tradition of Apple Pie and Chevrolet PAC" but for all you know that money could be coming from some oil man who just wants to have a friendly white house to his needs. Its no different than bill naming, if you want to take away freedoms and civil libertarians get upset, just call it the prevent terrorism and child porn act and they will shut up...
The problem is also education, that is to say that so many people, after receiving a k-12 education in the US are so fucking stupid that they just believe the crap in these ads and propaganda in general, some critical thinking amongst the 90 percent who just go all out blindly for one party or the other would solve many of our issues.
Oh hai thar, TechNY/TechLA/WhoeverYouWereLastWeek with your random jabs at Google at the same minute as the article goes live. Funny seeing you speaking about astroturfing.
And how exactly short plain text ads clearly marked as such are an "astroturfing platform"? Astroturfing is pushing your employer's agenda without disclosing your affiliation - kinda like you do.
Look, I'm not going to argue for or against the veracity of your comments here. I just need to say the following.
Goddamn man, you must have one hell of a vendetta against Fox News to use the article/summary as a springboard into a rant about Fox News and its bias. Hell, after the first sentence, your paragraph has extremely little, if anything, to do with the article at hand and solely becomes about how Fox News has infected the news cycle.
There's a time and a place for things. And, I suppose, you follow the idea that you should make your own time and place.
Well if everyone is so fucking stupid then perhaps we should switch to a Technocratic-oligarchy instead of a Democracy. There have been several times in US history where powerful people suggested we discourage the stupid masses from being involved in democratic elections.
With "the stupid masses" defined as "anyone who disagrees with me"?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
just had a crazy idea, require honest names for superpacs, like "Halliburton execs for Romney" or "Goldman Sachs managers for Obama"
"Rich donors for the Rich"
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Won't work and here is why: Shell corps, which the USA really doesn't do little if anything to regulate. You see all GS or Halliburton would do is set up a dummy corp called "Freedom for the free' or some other bullshit name, bounce the money through two or three shell corps before it got to FFTF and voila! same problem we have now.
Personally i have serious doubts anything can be done about the system until it collapses which i truly believe is inevitable now. The corruption is just too deep and too entrenched and any solutions would cause loss of power to those top 5% who frankly won't stand for it. Instead what we will see is BOTH sides grabbing more and more power for themselves, BOTH sides giving away money to their masters as fast as they can, and BOTH sides making sure the printing presses spin like tops.
So I'm sorry friend and as much as the few optimists left like to call me a bastard for saying this I believe it to be true nonetheless, the only thing you can do now is grab as much for you and yours as you can and try to be as ready as you can be for the fall. Some have said that attitude will hasten the fall, but so what? if it crashes in 10 years or 15 will it really make any difference? The jobs are gone, the factories closed or closing, nearly half don't pay any taxes because they are too poor and more and more of the population can't even eat or clothe themselves without government assistance. and in all of this there is NOTHING you can do about it because you don't have enough money to buy congressmen and votes are worthless when both sides have been bought.
So grab what you can and be ready, because even someone with a sixth grade education knows you can't spend more than you bring in forever but with both sides so bought and paid for and their refusal to see this most basic of realities means all you can do is be ready for when the whole rotten thing comes crashing down.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
they should just pay the voters directly
They do. If you're a minority they call it EBT.
If you're white they call it earned income tax credit.
If you're old, they call it Medicare and they call it prescription drug benefits.
They promise to tweak one or those or the others depending on which votes they're lacking in the current campaign. But the old people seem the most popular.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
You're ignorant. If you're poor they call it EBT,
I was going to bring this up as well.
Misinformation like "welfare is for minorities" exists only because certain groups are playing racial politics.
The majority of Americans on welfare benefits are white.
The majority of Americans on medicaid are white.
Just so everyone understands this:
As a percentage of their demographic, more minorities are using government support programs.
As a percentage of the population, more white people are using government support programs.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!