negative ads... all the fuss

jamison foser from media matters wrote a great article on negative campaign ads. Since candidates would never come out and say the negative aspects of their policies, and as we've seen the medai wont do that either, as voters we must rely on neagive ads as a source to be informed. And from watching, look into the issues further to find out if the ads are true. I mean, there are negative ads that have delivered false claims and I would never say they are a good thing to have, but as voters, we must look deeper into the issues presented. As we know the media has not done a very good job of telling us which ads are true or which are full of bologna, and so the negative ads can potentially cause more harm then they should. Ignorant voters may not realize the false claims, or challenge anything the ads say, basically accepting the information in all ads. Now, i must say that i really dislike the fact that the media never says anything about the false claims in ads..in fact i feel it is their job as journalists to tell voters the truth. And Foser goes on in the article about the amount of negative ads in the campaigns etc., and i dont feel the amount is so bad, i think its more about the content. An ad can be negative about an opposing candidate, as long as the facts are true. If not, a candidate should not make false claims, as they know many voters will not take the time to look further and the media will not do its job in telling voters when ads are false. It's so horrible that the media will simply go along with the material given as fact, and polling the "negative" ads as one big group, when in facgt there are negative ads with true information, and there are ads with false information. The media should tell us the difference. Foser says this, and i completly agree and it makes so much sense:"Lumping all negative statements together as "slinging mud," without differentiating between true claims and false (or fair and unfair) doesn't inform viewers; it is a false equivalence that serves only to advantage truly dishonorable attacks by making them appear no worse than run-of-the-mill factual criticism."