We get two stories from Ms. Bumiller today in the NYTimes. The theme of both articles is advertising and the campaign to get BushCo elected. It's what Jay Rosen at PressThink calls "the Ad Watch" and it ain't good.
The first one is about BushCo election ads running sooner than we were told they would. Although Ms. Bumiller doesn't say it, this is what fear looks like. The tone of the story is that BushCo has been driven to start his campaign early due to aggressive Dem attacks and resultant slipping poll numbers. He's just raring to turn it all around with the truth. Ms. Bumiller writes that "One campaign official described Mr. Bush as eager to plunge into campaigning." Eager? He's been campaigning for weeks now - mostly on our dime. That should have been mentioned. And if you're going to talk ads, talk about all relevent ads. The story should have mentioned the Medicare ad campaign that's being funded by tax dollars. All of that plus a Democrat-free appearance during the SuperBowl pregame show and on Meet the Press and still the polls are slipping.
The ads Ms. Bumiller talks about in her second story are the ones thatHalliburton is getting out there about how unfairly they have been maligned. This is the last paragraph of Ms. Bumiller's article:
But, Mr. Lesar said, "we are in the middle of an election cycle, he is part of the election cycle and therefore we are getting a level of scrutiny that in my view is unprecedented in the history of corporate America."
Right - never before. Another reference here.
The story isn't unbalanced as far as it goes. There are some quotes from people who consider the Halliburton ads ill-advised. But they refer to either how nobody is going to believe Halliburton anyway, or how the ads will affect BushCo's re-election bid:
But at a time when President Bush's own campaign commercials have yet to start, the Halliburton spots — two are on the air so far — have created an awkward situation for the White House, which has not fallen over itself to embrace them. Mr. Cheney's office had no comment, and neither did the Bush campaign. But one Republican official close to the administration said the company was clearly thinking of itself, not the president's re-election.
And there's this paragraph, which reminds us of the real world that Halliburton funds:
Mr. Lesar also says in the advertisement that the company has been in business for 60 years, working for governments led by each party. He does not point out that in the last decade the company has given more than $800,000 to Republican candidates and $80,000 to Democrats, according to Political Money Line, a company that provides campaign finance data.
But my problem is that the story doesn't go far enough. As it stands, it's a slightly modified press release from Halliburton's PR department. I'm not sure the ads should be the focus, but the very idea of the ads. What's the target audience for the ads? When and where are they running? What firm produced them or are they in-house? Is there a precedent for a defense firm taking ads like these out? Why is it automatic that BushCo should care what Halliburton does - or that Halliburton should consider BushCo's campaign plans when it plans ads? Have we finally and quietly come to accept that Halliburton has a virtual office in the White House? Ms. Bumiller doesn't raise any of those questions. Context, context, context. But there's hope - maybe she'll fix it all in a follow-up.
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