“GreedyTV”

Where do non-voters get their information about candidates and campaigns?

Not from the newspapers. They don’t read stories about the campaign.

Certainly, not here on the Internet. If they don’t read campaign stories in the papers, why would they look for election information here?

But they do watch the evening news.The Vanishing Voter tracking poll is documenting that the “the factor most              closely associated with Americans' involvement in the              campaign has been news coverage. When coverage               increases, public involvement also rises. When it declines, so       too does public involvement.”

Unfortunately, there’s not much on the evening news to help people understand where the candidates stand on the issues.

That’s why we’re supporting  the ‘5 minutes a night’ campaign spearheaded by the Alliance for Better Campaigns to push the news media to give adequate attention to what candidates are actually saying about the issues in a campaign.

‘5 minutes a night’ is the amount of  time that the Alliance wants local broadcasters to devote to candidates discussing issues between 5:00 and 11:30 PM every night,  30 days prior to the election.

 We’re talking here about a total of 5 minutes a night between 5:00 and 11:30 PM related to any of the campaigns taking place in our region.

That should be easy enough, shouldn’t it? In the Delaware Valley, we have  hotly contested Senate and House races in all three states and a ‘too close to call’ Presidential campaign.

On September 28th, the CBS network agreed to this principle and its local station, KYW (Channel 3) is now working to put it into practice. Congratulations, KYW.

The other stations have yet to agree.

They all got a strong letter of support last spring, signed by Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and Walter Cronkite.
They ignored it.

They heard from the Institute for the Study of Civic Values, WAWA, and a number of  local groups last spring, during the Pennsylvania primary. They ignored us too.

So now there’s a new campaign. The icon links to its web site:

The TV stations are making millions from political ads,  but they refuse to give us just 5 minutes a night of candidates discussing issues. That’s GreedyTV.

Issue-oriented coverage is important to all voters, but  it’s essential to reaching nonvoters. We believe that if non-voters hear candidates discussing issues every night, they’ll be better informed--and more likely to vote. It’s that simple.

So if the broadcasters didn’t listen to us--maybe they’ll listen to you.

Contact these Stations by Email or Phone
Tell them you Support the ‘5 minutes a Night’ Campaign:

WPVI (6-Action News) cyber6
Carla Carpenter-News Director


NBC-10 http://www.nbc10.com/tvsd/email/index.shtml
Steve Schwaid-News Director


FOX News
http://www.foxphiladelphia.com/wwwboard/news_email.html
John Mussoni

And if you want to hear what Walter Cronkite has to say about all of this, dial 1-866-GREEDYTV. It’s an important message.
 

Become a NonVoter Volunteer