Many stations don’t factcheck super PAC ads: survey

Many local television stations do not consistently evaluate the accuracy of the political ads they air, according to survey results released by the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

As Annenberg director Kathleen Hall Jamieson acknowledged, the center’s study, released during a mini-conference at the National Press Club on factchecking and the 2012 election, is of limited utility: the data was collected via an opt-in survey of 206 U.S. TV station managers and executives, and, as such, the findings can’t really be generalized. Still, the study suggests that many station managers and executives are unclear about their rights and responsibilities when faced with a political ad that takes liberties with the truth—in particular, whether they can refuse to run certain questionable ads, or suggest edits, or otherwise factcheck the content before it airs.