Fake news reports a growing trend in political campaigns

As viewers watch scenes from a Little League baseball game, a familiar face appears to tell them that former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. routinely steps off the campaign trail to watch his 10-year-old son play.

“Family first and always, and that’s the way it needs to be,” Ehrlich (R), standing on the sidelines, tells Andy Barth in a three-minute piece that has a similar look and feel to many pieces Barth churned out during more than three decades as a television news reporter in Baltimore.

Only this video was not cut for television. It is appearing on the Ehrlich campaign’s Web site and Facebook page. And Barth is no longer a TV reporter. He’s Ehrlich’s press secretary.

In other installments, Barth has “reported” from the Ocean City boardwalk about why people there like Ehrlich better than Gov. Martin O’Malley(D); from a Howard County high school about how impressed the students were by an Ehrlich visit; and from the Eastern Shore about how businesses are struggling with taxes and other burdens blamed on O’Malley.

If that doesn’t sound like objective reporting, it isn’t. But that’s the point. The faux news reports by Barth build on a growing trend among political campaigns to bypass traditional media and generate the kind of spots a candidate wants aired. In Ehrlich’s case, he is doing so with the help of a veteran reporter who spent three decades building credibility with viewers.

“Every campaign, every candidate, especially in today’s digital age, looks for ways to communicate directly with voters and get around the media filter,” said Mo Elleithee, a Democratic media strategist. “I don’t see anything wrong with that. But I’ve never seen this exact situation.”

O’Malley’s campaign has produced several videos capturing events on the campaign trail, including a statewide tour after his announcement that he is seeking reelection. Like Ehrlich’s, those are distributed via YouTube, Facebook and the candidate’s Web site. But none gives the feel of watching a news report.

“We’re not going to hire a former reporter to play a reporter,” said Tom Russell, O’Malley’s campaign manager. Barth said the idea for his series was hatched in a meeting a few weeks ago with other senior Ehrlich staffers, long after he signed on as press secretary.

“We realized we have a capacity in this campaign no one else has,” said Barth, who spent 35 years reporting on politics and other topics for WMAR (Channel 2), Baltimore’s ABC affiliate. He later freelanced for WTTG (Channel 5), Fox’s Washington affiliate.

“I was quite content to consider my TV career over,” Barth said. “But I like to tell stories, and I’m telling people stories about Bob Ehrlich. The difference, and I recognize this, is this is advocacy. But I’m very comfortable advocating for Bob Ehrlich.”

The audience for Barth’s videos has been relatively modest, with the most watched logging just more than 500 views on YouTube as of Monday. Ehrlich aides said the pieces have helped keep supporters engaged and expect the audience to grow as more people discover them.

Precedents

Other campaigns — as well as government agencies — have attempted to mimic traditional news broadcasts in recent years with mixed results.

The 2008 presidential campaign of Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) impressed some bloggers with the launch of Dodd-TV, an Internet site that featured up-close video of Dodd on the campaign trail, as well as analyses by staff members.

A few years earlier, President George W. Bush’s Health and Human Services Department ran into trouble by producing videos about Medicare changes that were made to look like real news reports. Portions of the videos, which were aired by 40 television stations, did not make clear that the announcers were paid by HHS and were not real reporters, the government’s independent Government Accountability Office determined in 2004, ruling that the ads violated federal law.

Barth — whose videos are shot by another Ehrlich aide — identifies his employer more explicitly in some pieces than others.

“Since I began to work for Bob Ehrlich, a lot of people have asked me why,” Barth begins his dispatch from Ocean City. “I just think he’s a better guy — smarter, tougher, kinder, more decent, more honest — than the other candidate. But tell me, why are you for him?”

In others, Barth makes no mention of his role. In an interview, he suggested it was clear from the context and where the videos are posted that they are not intended to mislead people. Those being interviewed are told he works for the campaign, Barth said.

Still, on first blush, the videos appear to be ads that should carry an “authority line” identifying the campaign, even if they are only distributed over the Internet, said Jared DeMarinis, the director of candidacy and campaign finance for the Maryland State Board of Elections, who had not seen the spots before being asked about them by a reporter.

The hardest-hitting of the videos features Eastern Shore business people talking about the impact of higher taxes and other O’Malley policies.

“Our current governor likes to talk about how Maryland has made a lot of progress in the last four years. But we have a hard time seeing that,” Barth says at the outset of the report, in which the owner of a roofing company calls the state “a People’s Republic of Maryland” under O’Malley.

Unlikely ally

Judging by his résumé, Barth might seem an unlikely pitchman for Ehrlich.

After retiring from television, he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2008 — as a Democrat.

But Barth said he came to know and respect Ehrlich over the years, building on a relationship that started in 1994 when Barth covered Ehrlich’s first run for Congress. In 2002, when Ehrlich ran for governor, Barth broke the news.

When the opportunity arose to be Ehrlich’s press secretary, it was not a tough call, Barth said. “I think it’s more important to focus on the character of the candidate than the party label,” he said.

Barth acknowledged occasional frustration at trying to get reporters, including his former TV brethren, to turn out for events.

One recent Ehrlich event — an appearance at a Howard high school — drew no reporters because the school made a late request to close it. A few days later, a report from Barth surfaced on the campaign’s Facebook page.

Judging from the students featured, Ehrlich clearly was a hit. Not a single one had anything bad to say about him.

Copyright 2010 The Washington Post Company