Watching the Watchers

Abstract

Since David Broder issued a challenge to journalists after the 1988 presidential campaign to move from being “color commentators” to “referees,” political campaign ad watches have proliferated. This article uses originally coded data to empirically document the growth, increasing diversity, and content of all original print ad watches from the 1992,1996, and 2000 election cycles. Testing a series of standard political communication hypotheses, the analysis indicates that while ad watches have increased in frequency, source, and target, they have been molded more to emphasize the strategic aspect of advertising than to evaluate the veracity of content. Systematic bias emerges in the form of local sources’ being easier on local incumbents, a penchant for carrying out ad watches on negative ads, and treating Democratic ads more favorably than Republican.