KAYU turns down attack ad

A Spokane television station refused this week to run an ad from the National Republican Congressional Committee, arguing that the ad’s criticisms of Democrat Don Barbieri were unsubstantiated.

“It is our obligation to look at everything that goes on the air and make some kind of determination as to the validity of the claims they are making,” said John Rand, general manager of KAYU-28, the Fox affiliate.

On Monday, Rand suspended the ad from running on KAYU, asking the committee to substantiate its claim that Barbieri profited from the sale of a downtown property after a deal to build the Spokane Transit Authority’s transit center fell through in the early 1990s. On Tuesday, the NRCC withdrew the ad from KAYU’s lineup.

It was the second ad produced for the NRCC making the claim that Barbieri’s company made $900,000 on the deal. Barbieri submitted documentation to all four local television network affiliates that his campaign says proves he actually lost money on the deal.

Both ads have run on the networks’ Spokane affiliate stations. The first ad “ran its course” and was replaced by the second ad, said NRCC spokesman Bo Harmon. The second ad is still running on stations other than KAYU. Harman said that the Spokane stations asked for documentation to substantiate the ad and that what the committee provided was good enough for everyone but KAYU.

“Basically, all the substantiation they gave me were newspaper clippings,” Rand said, referring to a Journal of Business article mailed to him by the NRCC. “That’s not substantiation. Look what happened to Dan Rather and CBS a few weeks ago. To base a decision you make simply on what you read or see on television is not sound management.”

So the NRCC canceled the KAYU “buy” before the ad started to run, Harmon said. He repeated the assertion of NRCC communications director Carl Forti on Monday that the ad was not scheduled to run on KAYU until Tuesday night.

“We feel it is an important piece of information as people consider (Barbieri’s) business record,” Harmon said.

Rand said the ad actually was scheduled to run on KAYU on Monday night, but he suspended it until the NRCC got back to him. He said NRCC attorney Donald McGahn withdrew the ad during a conversation Tuesday morning.

“In fact, he told me he had wasted his time in talking to us,” Rand said.

“I’m glad that at least one of our stations is doing the right thing by taking this false, misleading and deceptive ad off the air,” Barbieri said Tuesday. “The latest ad, which includes attacks on my deceased father’s integrity, is a shameful display of everything wrong with politics.

“Cathy McMorris should have already asked for this ad to be pulled,” Barbieri added.

McMorris spokesman Dan Brady said the campaign is less inclined than it once was to complain to the NRCC “now that Barbieri has chosen to attack Cathy himself.”

He was referring to a recent Barbieri campaign ad criticizing McMorris’ record in the state Legislature, spots Barbieri sees as legitimate “comparison advertising,” not attack ads. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also has run an ad in the Spokane market, critical of McMorris’ votes on health care legislation.

Both campaigns say the other’s ads, and those of their parties, are a distraction from the real issues that concern the district – job creation, the economy and access to health care. And both defend their own ads.

Of the other three network affiliates in Spokane, only KXLY-4 responded Monday and Tuesday to Spokesman-Review requests for interviews. KXLY’s Kirby McKee said the station was continuing to run the NRCC transit center ad.

“It is not uncommon during the political season to have someone saying something isn’t true,” McKee said. “If it’s blatantly untrue, we can act on it. There is a lot of gray in this one.”