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Mon.: Ad Wars
posted at 2010-03-08 23:28 | Last modified 2010-03-08 23:40
RNC Chairman Michael Steele dropped by Greensboro today to introduce a new GOP fundraising ad campaign. Here’s the ad:
Greensboro’s Mark Binker covered the event here. My initial reaction to the ad is that it’s pretty and well-produced, but not particularly compelling. It’s also interesting to me that he came to Greensboro to roll out the six-figure test-market campaign. Parts of the Triad lean Republican, but Guilford County, not so much.
The NC Dems had their own ad roll-out today – a web ad lambasting Senator Richard Burr for his no vote on unemployment benefits and his lobbyist connections. That ad’s here:
Initial reaction: no more compelling than Steele’s ad, and not as well-produced, either. Plus, the party appropriated audio from Mark Binker’s blog, but credited the Winston-Salem Journal - which, one notes, did not have audio to “borrow.”
GN&R editor John Robinson called the Dems out on the potential copyright infringement. The official party response: “Richard Burr's vote against North Carolina jobs and his ideologically extreme statements to reporters are a matter of public record.”
(Maybe so, but the audio is not available from multiple media sources. )
On background, I was told, “The audio is publicly available for streaming on the NR website. It was from an interview with several reporters that Burr did a couple of weeks ago. I believe the Winston-Salem Journal, Richard Craver, was the first to print Burr’s comments, so that's why we credited them in the ad.”
The fact that audio is available to listen to does not make it the property of the listener -- especially when it’s copyrighted. And the fact that more than one reporter attended an event does not make it okay to credit coverage of that event to the wrong reporter. After all, audio is work -- it’s much more time-intensive than a print quote.
I don’t mean to come across as doctrinaire. Sooner or later, every political reporter sees his or her work cited in someone’s ad campaign. That’s not pleasant, but it’s part of the job. But when someone is using your work to raise money for their own cause, it seems to me the least they can do is get the attribution right.
You know where you got it, guys. Credit where it’s due.
Comments? Drop me a line.
