Attack of the Attack Ads
By Fred Brown
Sunday, August 29, 2004
"Negative" or "attack" political advertising, which seems to increase in quantity as it diminishes in integrity, nonetheless has its defenders.
They say edgy ads are necessary because they're sharp enough to penetrate the thick skulls of American voters, forcing them to consider issues they might otherwise ignore.
The repetition and adherence to message create an image that even the best journalism cannot equal - or neutralize, either.
And if there were no attack advertising, its defenders say, where would voters find out about the flaws of the people they're tempted to support? Certainly not from a lot of namby-pamby, soft-focus "for he's a jolly good fellow" commercials. And media watchdogs will alert us when the negative ads don't tell the truth.
Oh really? (as they say in the presidential campaign attack ads).
Sure, clarifying and contradictory words will be printed. But they are a mere squirt gun against the flood of negative advertising.
Something like 60 percent of campaign spending goes to those 30-second TV spots because that's where the majority of voters get their ideas about the candidates.
Many more people see television commercials, and see them over and over again, than ever read a one-shot investigative or explanatory article.
Its defenders also argue that trying to discourage negative advertising would stifle basic First Amendment rights of free expression and the ideal of vigorous political debate. And just because people are filthy rich and have millions of dollars to spend on nasty ads doesn't mean they don't have rights, too.
Yet even its defenders won't say they really enjoy negative advertising. It's just that they think they see a legitimate role for it. They may be only rationalizing the inevitable: Negative advertising is not going to go away, so we might as well learn to live with it.
But there's plenty wrong with negative ads:
They distort the truth. That's what they're designed to do.
They discourage people from voting. Each side attacks the other, and voters get the idea that everyone running is, deep down, a bad person.
They dissuade potential candidates. Who wants to be subjected to having every flaw exaggerated?
They leave the impression that no politician is worthy of trust. They degrade the culture. They mock civil discourse.
The pragmatist's argument for negative advertising is that it works. But who can be sure? After all, in big-money campaigns, both sides go The New York Times last week had a revealing piece about the stubborn survival of negative advertising.
"Focus groups will tell you they hate negative ads and love positive ads," Steve McMahon, a Democratic strategist, told The Times. "But call them back four days later and the only thing they can remember are the negative ones."
But there's worse news. Dwelling on the negative could be one of those basic instincts that served primitive societies well, but are destructive in more advanced cultures.
"There appears to be something hard-wired into humans that gives special attention to negative information," Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, told The Times. "I think it's evolutionary biology. It was the wariness of our ancestors that made them more likely to see the predator and hence to prepare."
So just as we feel primitive urges to be promiscuous or to stuff ourselves whenever food is available - because our prehistoric ancestors didn't know where their next meal or whatever was coming from - it may be that we can't help ourselves when it comes to seeing things in the worst light.
Fred Brown, retired Capitol Bureau chief for The Denver Post, is also a political analyst for 9News.
