Politics
The political ad files online: Geek talk
Here's a collection of tweets about the new FCC requirement effective Aug. 2 that political advertising files for local television stations be posted online. The files are in PDF format, which makes machine-readable data crunching difficult. An API exists.
RT @jonathankappler: #bigdeal RT @binker: The FCC gives us another window in to political spending starting today bit.ly/NVQxDx #ncga #ncpol #ncgov
After long battle and opposition from media corporations, FCC site with political ad data is up bit.ly/OsFR0w
@elliottjustin Can crowdsourcing efforts to "free the files" at FCC actually work?- @elliottjustin What is expected volume of posted crap PDFs? I wonder if it's possible to run back-of-envelope math on necessary data entry.
- @palewire this is what they look like: bit.ly/PCXB5C they can vary station to station, though
- @elliottjustin How many reports per cand? Take that times 2, times 50 markets, times maybe 4 stations per market = rough prez estimate?
Today the FCC opened up a web app to download political TV ad buy invoices. @elliottjustin has the deets: propublica.org/article/politi…
.@elliottjustin looks at the TV political ad contracts up on the new FCC site ow.ly/cHiHW- @derekwillis isn’t most of the criticism focused on the lack of search or any structured data initiative?
- @derekwillis @A_L problem is FCC declined to follow its own working groups recommendation that data be machine-readable bit.ly/PEjXns
- @derekwillis @A_L and it's not on any road map beyond being a "long term goal" -- industry opposed it
@elliottjustin @a_l timeliness, machine-readable. Choose one. FCC made it's choice; if it went with latter we'd get zero before election.- @derekwillis @A_L tough to know internal process. Will seemed like a real issue here, as well
- @elliottjustin @a_l not that tough; chief data officer is on twitter and eminently reachable. complicated? yes.
- @derekwillis @A_L I wouldn’t underestimate industry’s wishes here. That’s why we only have top 50 markets
- @elliottjustin @a_l no, but also wouldn't underestimate actual work involved. If it was so easy, why do virtually no reporters do it?
@derekwillis Seems clear to me that specifying a structured data format would have pushed the data release past this cycle.
