Want to follow the money behind political ads? Good luck finding it

[Commentary] Covering media aspects of Baltimore mayor's race the past three months leaves me as disheartened as I can remember being about anything on my beat. I have long been decrying the role of dark money, hidden persuaders and stealth media efforts to win votes and shape election outcomes. But I mainly thought about the problem as a national one, focusing on presidential and congressional races. This spring, it got local and personal for me, as I tried to report on media, money and the mayor's race and found that some media outlets that portray themselves as serving the public in their political coverage were actually withholding from voters information they should have in a timely fashion.

An estimated $5 million was spent on political advertising on broadcast TV just in April, according to Dan Joerres, president of WBAL-TV. Overall spending on Baltimore (MD) broadcast TV since the start of the year: $7 million. That doesn't necessarily include all the super PAC buys. And it includes no cable. There is no doubt that TV ads played a major role in April 26's Democratic primary election for mayor, which Catherine Pugh won by only 2,574 votes over Sheila Dixon. The question is how much the outcome was shaped by the money spent on a highly sophisticated media effort for Pugh — and against Dixon. Unfortunately, we might never know the answer to that because of vague and often toothless disclosure regulations, especially from the Federal Communications Commission.