Buying an Election?

Billionaire Meg Whitman is running for Governor of California and has taken an interesting approach to garnering media coverage.

Whitman's campaign is receiving harsh criticism for supplying the media with video and recorded soundbites from her campaign stops in an effort, they say, to make it "easier" for the media to cover her campaign.

The Democratic nominee, Jerry Brown, calls it "campaign propaganda", while a San Francisco television station, KPIX refuses to run the video:



Smaller television stations with smaller staffs could find the provided video as assistance as they wouldn't be able to staff the political races.

It is an interesting discussion, however. As media (especially local) outlets experience declining revenues with shrinking staffs, would the they look to use material from sources that supply content? To be safe, they could lean toward using supplied material in regard to topics that are more informational in nature.

There would be an argument that if a media outlet were to use such material a disclaimer may have to be used to alert viewers, listeners, or readers where the content originated.

Times are tough and media outlets sometimes need material to fill newscasts.

Content is king, at times.