Tuesday, September 09, 2008

McCain on Obama on Education

In a new John McCain adverstisement, an announcer says the following about Barack Obama's record on education:
Education Week says Obama "hasn't made a significant mark on education". That he's "elusive" on accountability. A "staunch defender of the existing public school monopoly."
You have to watch the ad carefully to pick up the sourcing, which doesn't exactly follow the text. Education Week only said the first thing, about the "significant mark." The "elusive" line is actually from the Washington Post, and the last, "staunch defender" part is from the Chicago Tribune. And in that case from a Tribune columnist, Steve Chapman, writing here

Are there any rules or accepted practices about this kind of thing? Can you quote some crazy thing from a Bill Kristol or Maureen Dowd column in a political ad and simply source it to "The New York Times."? Obviously, I understand there's no honor among thieves etc., but still...



3 comments:

Miss G said...

I think that the written citations during the commercial ("Washington Post", "Chicago Tribune") above the quotes are sufficient for the viewer to understand where the information is coming from.

Granted, if the ad is read as a transcript and not viewed, it would easily be misunderstood to be attributing each of those quotes to Education Week.

I would be interested to read more about this Comprehensive Sex Education for he supports for use in lower elementary grades. I can't imagine it's as severe as they make it out to be.

Anonymous said...

Kevin,

Is "adverstisement" a neologism or a typo? Seems like a pretty good term for a negative ad.

Kevin Carey said...

Consider it a neologism officially coined by yrs truly with the expectation of attribution in all future uses, and certainly not a careless typo committed while trying to write one more post on the way out of the office.