This idea is for a strictly voluntary accuracy rating system for political ads.

Currently politicians put out ads. Then news agencies review them and on the news they say whether or not they are accurate. Usually of course they are not.

Why not have a voluntary system where candidates can submit their ads to news agencies for review. If the news agency determines the ad is accurate (meaning both factually true and not misleading according to that news agency's standards) then the politician can include an accuracy disclaimer in the ad. Like a movie saying it is rated PG-13.

Politicians who have misleading ads can choose not to submit them, or just not include the rating if they did not get a good one. They could also submit to any news agency they wanted - conservatives could submit to Fox news for instance. The rating would say which agency had reviewed the ad, so the voters could decide for themselves whether it was valid or not.

This would benefit honest politicians (and there must be a few). If you are running accurate ads and your opponent is not, then there would be great value in having "Verified true by CNN" in your ad and not in your opponent's.

For news agencies this would give them greater exposure (being thought of as the determiner of truth is a nice reputation for a news agency to have) and is something they basically do already, just after the ad is run. Presumably national agencies would handle national ads, local stations/newspapers/etc would handle local campaigns.

What do you think of this idea or comment?
(You can change your vote at any time)

I agree

No opinion

I disagree