In an article by Kathleen Hall Jamieson published on June 6, 2012 in the AARP Bulletin, you can do something about misleading political advertising.
Misleading ads made not by a candidate but by a third-party group, a category that includes political parties, interest groups and super PACs, can and should be rejected by television and radio stations, as well as print publications.
“The level of inaccuracy in the third-party presidential ads has been high. As an Annenberg Public Policy Center study shows, from the Iowa caucuses through the Wisconsin primary, almost 57 percent of the $41.1 million deployed by the four highest-spending third-party groups was devoted to 19 ads containing misleading claims.”
Such deceptions shift votes causing people to reject a candidate they would otherwise support.
“Because they can charge more for third-party ads than for those by federal candidates, stations earn a windfall airing them. As CBS President Les Moonves told an entertainment law conference in March, “Super PACs may be bad for America but they’re very good for CBS.” But by taking seriously their right to insist on the accuracy of third-party ads and regularly debunking deceptive political ad content, stations can translate some of those profits into protection for the public served by their stations. That is what a new campaign by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania is asking them to do.”
Go to the “Stand by Your Ad” page at APPC’s FlackCheck.org and email your local station managers. Encourage them to protect their viewers from air pollution. The process takes less than two minutes. More than 900 of the 1,047 station managers have already heard from their viewers. Please make your voice heard now.
http://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/info-06-2012/be-a-super-pac-watchdog.html
