Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra feature stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Candidates Go Negative in Campaign Ads, 10/30/06
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec06/ads_10-30.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What is the purpose of political advertisements?

2. What gets your attention - when someone says something positive about someone or when someone says something negative about someone?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What is a negative political ad?

A negative political ad is one in which the focus is not on the positive aspects of a candidate but rather on the negative aspects of a candidate's opponent.

2. Are negative ads effective? Why or why not?

Even though many Americans claim to have a strong distaste for negative ads, political experts contend that they are more effective than positive ads.

"People sometimes tune out positive ads but a negative ad draws more attention," said Henry Kenski, a professor at the University of Arizona and the director of Senator Jon Kyl's, R-Ariz., Southern Arizona office. Kenski is a co-author of "Attack Politics: Strategy and Defense."

3. What are some consequences of using negative ads?

Going negative in a campaign can have unintended consequences and, in some cases, can actually backfire. According to Kenski, this can happen in two ways: when the claim that is made in the ad is excessively negative, or when the person making the claim is not credible.

"When people are turned off and the [ad] has gone over the top, the claim is not credible," Kenski said.

4. Describe the Willie Horton political ad and why it was effective?

A classic example of an effective negative political advertisement is the Willie Horton television ad from 1988. In the ad, presidential candidate George H.W. Bush successfully portrayed his opponent, then-Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, as soft on crime.

The ad detailed how Horton, a convict in a Massachusetts prison, escaped and murdered two people due to Dukakis' policy of allowing prisoners to go on weekend "furloughs."

The ad was denounced by some as unfair to Dukakis because it insinuated that, if elected, he would let prisoners out of jail. However, it also garnered a tremendous amount of media attention and helped shape the public's negative perception of Dukakis.

5. What is the Daisy Girl ad? Who ran the ad? Who was the ad attacking?

Perhaps the most infamous political ad was Lyndon Johnson's Daisy Girl television spot.

Shown in 1964, during one of the darkest periods of the Cold War, the ad showed a young girl picking the petals off of a daisy before being obscured by video of a nuclear mushroom cloud explosion.

The ad was extremely effective in portraying Johnson's opponent, the hawkish Senator Barry Goldwater, in a negative light by playing on the public's fear that he would start a nuclear war if elected.

Despite the fact that it was only shown once, the Daisy Girl ad permeated the news media after its airing.

6. How are negative political ads being used in this midterm election? Describe one from the article noting who is running the ad and who is being attacked in the ad.

In Florida's 22nd House District, Democratic state Senator Ron Klein has attacked his opponent, Republican Representative Clay Shaw with a TV ad that features the mother of a U.S. soldier serving in Iraq slamming Shaw for his support of the war.

In Tennessee, the Republican Party ran an ad against Democrat Harold Ford so loaded with innuendo that even Ford's Republican opponent, Bob Corker, denounced it.

John Gere, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University, told NPR that the commercial made "the Willie Horton ad look like child's play."

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. According to the article, many Americans say they dislike negative political ads. Where do you stand on the issue? Should negative political ads be allowed?

2. What political ads are being shown in your community? Are they negative? Pick one and analyze it. Who is running the ad? Who is the object of attack? Is this ad effective? Are you more of less likely to vote for either candidate based on this ad?

3. Political ads used to be shown or heard primarily on television and the radio. How has the Internet changed how political ads are used by politicians? Is this good? Why or why not?

Write a 300-500 word essay on either of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.