SACRAMENTO — Meg Whitman’s campaign opponents are accusing her of trying to manipulate the media by providing selective footage of a campaign event to television stations around the state.
In what appears to be an unprecedented campaign tactic in California politics, Whitman has advised television stations in all markets that she’ll be providing footage for events they are unable to attend for the rest of the campaign. The campaign sent its first footage Tuesday — eight minutes from a Riverside event in which she is shown talking to an audience.
Republican primary rival Steve Poizner’s campaign called it another attempt by Whitman to buy the election, referring to the $49 million that she’s spent so far on the campaign — largely on paid media advertising.
“Meg Whitman crossed another line in this race by spending her millions to spread her campaign propaganda in tailored sound bites to news stations,” said Jarrod Agen, Poizner’s spokesman.
Sterling Clifford, campaign spokesman for Democratic candidate Jerry Brown, called Whitman’s move “campaign propaganda,” while Sean Clegg, campaign manager for the Level the Playing Field 2010, said the move was straight out of Wall Street.
“In the world of corporate public relations,” Clegg said, “it may work to send packaged video press releases, but there’s a far greater degree of scrutiny in the political world.”
Whitman also spent 40 minutes Tuesday being interviewed by four TV stations through a satellite hookup the campaign engineered by hiring a satellite truck, at $5,000 for half a day.
“We are starting something brand new at the Whitman Campaign,” said an e-mail note sent out to TV stations earlier this week. “In an effort to make sure you’re getting everything you need from our team, we are going to be providing a satellite feed of footage from Meg’s news event on that given day. We’re excited about making this footage available to you immediately following the event, and hope that you find it useful!”
Whitman’s campaign said there is a distinction between the prepackaged news stories called video news releases, or VNRs, and the raw footage that the campaign sent out.
“We didn’t do a voice-over or create a news release,” said Mike Murphy, Whitman’s campaign strategist. “To say it was a package to fool stations is absolute (expletive). It’s hardly an attempt to manipulate the news. It’s eight minutes of random footage. If you want to use it in your newscast, great. If you don’t, great.
“It’s an attempt at publicity, not manipulation,” Murphy added. “They’re different things. All we’re trying to do is provide access, which, as of 30 days ago, we were being criticized for not doing.”
Whitman’s campaign did not know how many stations made use of the footage, but KPIX-TV Channel 5 was one station that refused to run it. Dan Rosenheim, vice president for news at the San Francisco station, said taking video feeds directly from campaigns raises ethical considerations.
“It’s an issue of balance,” Rosenheim said. “If a candidate can provide large quantities of material through their ability to pay for it, is there the risk that station’s coverage becomes unbalanced in that candidate’s favor?”
He also said he believes smaller stations with fewer resources would be tempted to use the material, which, while not prepackaged in a story form, is edited carefully by the Whitman campaign.
“It was edited in the sense they decided what to include and what not to include,” Rosenheim said. “It has the potential to create some very unbalanced coverage. In our case, we’re not going to use that, and hopefully news stations in general won’t.”
Whitman is attempting to gain the credibility that traditional news coverage — what’s known as earned media — imparts to candidates without having to go through the rigors of true news coverage, said Joe Tuman, a communications professor at San Francisco State.
“What’s really being presented is that it’s a staged event with her making her talking points,” Tuman said. “It’s another effort at controlling her message and getting free publicity from that.
“It’s a dangerous precedent,” Tuman added. “What is the message to other candidates? That they’ll have to produce product for them to get coverage?”
Contact Steven Harmon at 916-441-2101.
