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By Root 807 0

Republican nominee George H. W. Bush and an ad by Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis. To the surprise of the moderators, some ABC viewers could recall what the ads said, but not what Threlkeld had said about them. In 1989, Jamieson showed audiences the full twenty-two minute newscasts that included the Threlkeld piece and then asked the viewers to write down everything they remembered from Threlkeld’s report. Only thirty minutes after seeing the debunking, viewers still remembered the attacks in the Bush and Dukakis ads better than the reporter’s corrections. The reason? Threlkeld had illustrated his stories by filling up the screen with the political spots, while his criticisms were spoken.

Just as Darman would have predicted, Threlkeld’s spoken words were overwhelmed by the provocative pictures and graphics. In the Republican ad, printed text specifying weapons systems the Democrat supposedly opposed was superimposed over video of Dukakis riding in a tank. In the Democratic ad, a Social Security card was torn up. Viewers failed to get Threlkeld’s message, which was that Dukakis actually favored some of the weapons the ad said he opposed and that the two candidates had the same position on Social Security.

These days TV reporters who do “adwatch” stories are usually careful to avoid the eye-candy effect. That’s thanks in part to Annenberg’s research. Annenberg advised reporters to use special graphic techniques, showing the offending ad “boxed” in a cartoonlike TV set so that viewers don’t confuse the ad’s message with the reporter’s message, and imposing graphics over the ad to reinforce their points of criticism. But deceivers have learned a trick or two also, as we see in those pharmaceutical ads that use feel-good pictures to soften the unpleasant truth about the potential side effects of their products. Also, politicians have taken to slapping their slogans on banners and backdrops where TV cameras necessarily show them, so the speaker’s message gets across visually even if the news soundtrack doesn’t contain a single word he or she spoke.

An example of that is President Bush’s appearance on November 30, 2005, at the U.S. Naval Academy. His message of the day—that he had a “plan for victory” in Iraq—was reinforced with banners above and below the podium. We can make fun of Bush for appearing in front of a banner reading “Mission Accomplished” two and a half years earlier, on May 1, 2003, aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. That bit of eye candy was, to say the least, premature. But, regardless of what the reporters were saying about them, each of Bush’s messages was punched through by visuals that were powerful, whether or not they were valid.

A message conveyed by “eye candy.” AP Images.

Visuals also can be used to reinforce a false message that the deceiver can’t state outright. In 2005 the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America ran a TV ad showing a bombed-out abortion clinic and a disfigured victim, while the voice-over said that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts “filed court briefs supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber,” and adding: “America can’t afford a justice whose ideology leads him to excuse violence.” Roberts had in fact condemned clinic bombers and violence, but those powerful pictures transmitted the emotional message that Roberts had endorsed the mayhem being shown, even though the narrator stopped just short of saying that explicitly. FactCheck.org called that ad false and NARAL quickly pulled it off the air. Even the group’s allies criticized it.

When you see dramatic images, listen to the “fine print.” Ask yourself, “What are my ears telling me about this picture?” A picture can indeed be worth a thousand words—but those words aren’t necessarily true.

TRICK #5: The “Average” Bear

SOMETIMES THE “AVERAGE” BEARS WATCHING. PRESIDENT BUSH sold his tax cuts to the public by claiming the “average tax cut” would be $1,586, but most of us were never going to see anywhere near that much. Half of Americans got $470 or less, according to the nonpartisan