Many of these ad watches follow a widely recommended strategy for critical assessment of campaign advertising: presenting evidence of how accurately the claims made in an ad match the truth. Important elements also include playing the ad within a frame and labeling it so your viewers understand that it is the subject of a news piece, and freezing the ad at appropriate times for data/voice-over commentary.

Ad Watches: All Systems Go!

One thing all successful ad watch producers have in common is they create systems to make the production of these segments as easy as possible. Deb Halpern Wenger pulled together some tips from the experts, plus ideas for getting outside help for checking the facts.
» click to view

Ad Watch Labels

Working on ad watches but not sure how to label the claims? Here are some criteria that can help you understand the difference between False and Misleading. Contributed by Mike Cate & Robert Mak (KING), Brooks Jackson (CNN), and Michael Geeser (KLAS).
» click to view

  Ad Watch: The First Year

   : Greenville, South Carolina

clip run time » 3:34

contributed by Brad Willis, reporter, WYFF

[In 2002 WYFF received a BPJ grant to fund an ad watch project called Truth Check. The station is primarily focusing on the governors race and the race for the Senate seat that will be vacant when U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond retires at the end of the year.]

UPDATED 30.Sept.02

It took more than two months of Truth Check work, but I finally discovered what was wrong with my workspace.

It has an incredible stomach problem.

About once a week, my desk throws up on itself. Scattered between the take-out food wrappers and empty Diet Coke bottles (those are my doing) is an seemingly unorganized pile of Congressional voting records, travel expense spreadsheets, and campaign ad scripts. They are the pieces that will make up this weeks Truth Check.

By sheer miracle (and not a few overtime hours), the mess will become the best Truth Check report WYFF has aired to date. But at the moment, it all looks like a minor workspace disaster. Im looking for FEMAs number in my rolodex.

I began this project as a neophyte, intimidated by the size and scope. Just nine weeks into the work, I already feel like a battle-scarred veteran. There have been some minor mistakes, but the successes have overshadowed them all.

The public response has been overwhelming. I arrive at work after each Truth Check to a rapidly blinking voicemail light and an overflowing e-mail.

What began as a once-a-week project has turned into a series that runs at least three days each week. Truth Check has become the flagship of WYFFs election year coverage.

With that, here are some mid-project lessons learned by a reporter attacking such a project for the first time.

Use your stations web site. Early on, WYFF decided its web site, would serve as the clearinghouse for all things Truth Check oriented. Where time is limited in the broadcast version of our reports, we have unlimited space on the web. We use it to our advantage. When we want to back up our claims with even more documentation than we do on air, we put it on the web site. If an ad has a claim that wont fit into our broadcast story, we put it on the web. The result is a longer, print-style version of Truth Check. The web version also allows the politically-interested outside of our viewing area to check in on our work. Weve heard that many political operatives keep close tabs on it.

Watch out for yourself. That is to say, watch out for the campaigns using your work in their ads. It has happened once to WYFF already. One candidate for governor used our report in an ad targeting his opponent. However, the ad that used our report misrepresented what we said and mocked-up some graphics to suit the campaigns needs. Our response: A Truth Check about Truth Check being used in the ad. We labeled that part of the ad Misleading and moved on. Attorneys from both sides are still talking about whether the campaign violated any copyright rules.

Be sure of yourself. It goes without saying that we must be accurate. But as you venture into the waters of your own ad watch, youll discover that you no longer have the defense that youre just reporting what Candidate X said. You will be taking a stand and making what could be viewed as a subjective statement about a major political candidate. Campaign managers will scream at you. Theyll put you on a conference call with a researcher and they will both scream at you. They will do everything in their power to convince you that youre wrong. Thats why youll need your supporting documentation in front of you and your argument set in stone. If youre going to say that a candidate is misleading the viewers, you have to be able to say why and why there is no better description for the candidates claim.

An example:

A recent political ad cited a South Carolina newspaper and the Associated Press as it made a statement (printed on the screen, but not in quotation marks) that included two incendiary words that never appeared in either the newspaper or the Associated Press article. They were campaign buzz words. Truth Check called the ads visual elements misleading.

I spent about an hour on the phone that day with the campaign. It was not a pleasant conversation. There are no quotation marks around the words! the staffer yelled.

But you cited the paper and the AP, I said.

Youre just inferring he began again.

Youre right, I said. Im inferring. And if Im inferring that the words came from the paper and AP, so is the viewer. Thats misleading.

In short, dont just cover your behind. Know youre right and be able to say why.

In the end, it may have seemed a minor victory. However, the campaigns next ad was much more honest. It didnt just pull a direct quote from the newspaper. It took a picture of the paper and highlighted the quote. There was no room for misinterpretation.

Make it fun. Not just for yourself, but for everyone. If youre the reporter on the story, youll get most of the compliments if everything goes as to plan. However, your team should be having fun as well. I am fortunate to have a dedicated researcher, an executive producer, a graphics king, and a staff of production people working on the project with me. When your team is having fun and hearing the same compliments you are, the work will look better than it ever has.

Enough for now.

My desk is grumbling again under the weight of a 235-page Social Security overhaul plan.

Does anybody have that FEMA number handy?

The First Month
I didnt even have my bags unpacked from the BPJ ad watch seminar in Chicago. I barely had time to share my ideas for our new project with my bosses. No amount of time couldve prepared me for what I saw.

A look-alike for a Republican candidate for governor was stripping a soldier of his clothes.

A woman accused the same candidate of being against breast cancer research.

The political ads were on the air.

However, much earlier in the political year, we made a calculated decision to not begin our as-yet unnamed ad watch project until the race for governor was down to two candidates. There were too many ads on the air to do the project justice.

So, we waited.

We discussed our strategy. We figured we had somewhere between one and two months to get everything ready. That would give us time to plan, research, build graphics, and build our team.

Two weeks later the field narrowed to two people. Less than 12 hours later, the first ad was on the air. Our predicted two months of planning became two days.

Fortunately, I work with a very talented group of people. My producer/boss, Assistant News Director Lee Brown, worked on presentation. In less than one day he coordinated with our graphics team to build a beautiful set of stamps and graphics. He also worked with our production crew to figure out how to make the project work with our key wall and non-linear edit system. Our web editor created a new section for dedicated to our project. Since we had not yet hired a researcher, I buried myself under a pile of congressional votes and dug my way out.

It all worked.

The next day WYFF aired its first Truth Check Segment.

Since then we have aired one Truth Check a week and learned a number of lessons along the way.

Lesson #1: Plan. Plan. Plan.

We should never have been so lucky. In the short time frame we had from planning to airtime, the potential for disaster was high. If you know youre doing an ad watch project, take the time to build your team, graphics, and strategy early. It will save you a couple of coronaries.

Lesson #2: Use the campaigns line to your advantage

Weve found that our local campaigns will provide more background material and supporting documentation for their ads than we can use. Of course, it is usually slanted to their advantage. Many times, however, if you follow their citations to a voting record or newspaper article, you can usually find something that will help your ad watch.

Lesson #3: There is no need to hurry

We began in such a hurry that we almost didnt realize that we didnt have to kick in the afterburners every time an ad hit the air. A competing station is also conducting a similar project and tries to hit the air the same day the ad does. We do not. So far, weve given the ads at least five days on the air before going to air ourselves. Our viewers dont seem to mind. Weve received so many responses to Truth Check that it is hard to keep track of them all. Here are a few:

Just a note to thank Channel 4 for the truth in political ads broadcast that you have started. It is much needed and appreciated.

Bravo for your Truth Check Reports! Assuming the station can keep an unbiased angle on all candidates, I applaud your efforts to enlighten a busy but interested public. I know Im not alone in wanting to know more about the candidates and the claims made for or against them. Few, if any of us however have the time, resources or know how to investigate the claims made despite the fact ALL of us are intelligent enough to know theres more to the story. Thank you again, and I hope your efforts win you great recognition!

I have only seen one Truth Check but I cannot commend you enough for this report and I look forward to seeing many others. We are asked to make an informative decision for a candidate based mostly on their or an opponents ads and without this type of information, it is so easy to make the wrong decision. Congratulations.

It is not all roses, though. We are still trying to get our feet wet in a few areas. After one month of work, weve just a hired a researcher to help us out. Were still trying to get a feel for when to call an ad true and when to call it something else. Were also trying to figure out how to Truth Check statements that are made outside of political ads (web sites, stump speeches, etc.).

Three months to go and the candidates have millions of dollars to spend.

That should keep us busy enough.