(Updated at 10:45 p.m. Monday, Sept. 22, 2008)

CBC Radio One's The Sunday Edition had a panel on negative political advertising this morning.

The panel included consultant and former Liberal backroomer Warren Kinsella, pollster Allan Gregg and Chicago-based academic Joan L. Phillips.

The panel talked about how those ever-devious Tories were able to get news coverage out about negative attack ads aimed at Liberal Leader Stephane Dion. However, the brilliant part is that those ads were never really aired.

Gregg said that "earned media" exposure -- that would be your broadcasts and newspapers, who jumped on the ads and ran them in full -- always trumps bought media. And hey, it's free!

Plus, "anything seen through the earned media is seen to be more credible than that which is seen through the paid media," Gregg said. "So they get these negative messages out, basically using the press as their accomplices in these things, and cheap, cheap, cheap, because they don't have to go out and buy anything."

Host Michael Enright asked if the press was functioning as useful idiots in such instances.

"Absolutely, because it falls right into the 'if it bleeds, it leads' category of news," Gregg said.

Enright questioned Kinsella about a part in his book Kicking Ass in Canadian Politics where he wrote that it's hard to get the attention of political reporters, and that one should get tough and go negative and hit back hard.

"It's just because there's a lot of competition ... for the media's time in an election campaign," Kinsella replied, adding the media loves negative.

On the Tory 'inkspot' ads, Kinsella said, "It was Machiavellian from the outset. I mean those guys were all but signalling in the Tory war room they were not going to actually broadcast those ads."

The resulting blanket coverage came from a press gallery that supposedly hates Conservative Leader Stephen Harper for his prickly attitude towards them, he said. Kinsella said he told a Globe and Mail reporter: "It's like Stockholm Syndrome. You guys just dig the fact he keeps kicking you in the head."

Gregg said negative is more salacious, much easier to write about and fits in with today's general news narrative about car crashes and stabbings and whatnot. Many of today's young journalists "are fixated on process, on the game. They'd want to write about strategy, and it's much easier to write about that than the (platforms)."

Negative also plays well in today's climate of cynicism, Gregg said.

Obsolete part

I'll add more when CBC posts the audio of the broadcast.

Being resources-starved, CBC.ca still has the Sept. 14 show up as its "latest broadcast." Hopefully the next government will see fit to double the CBC's budget, so they can afford to put an audio clip of a flagship show up on the same day it's broadcast.

Update

Still no Sept. 21 show as of 9:52 a.m. Monday. However, by 10:45 p.m., it was there.

Addendum

While it's not particularly media related, Allan Gregg also gave an explanation about the infamous "is this the face of a prime minister?" ad that the Tories ran about Jean Chretien in the 1993 election -- one that he was involved with, and one that backfired badly on the campaign of Progressive Conservative Leader Kim Campbell:

"In this instance, this has become kind of  part of the urban legend of political advertising in Canada. I mean, you're hard-pressed to imagine a group sitting around -- me among them -- as stupid as stones, as venal, you know, as the devil, saying: 'We're 21 points behind in the polls. What would be something we could do that would be really interesting? I know -- let's make fun of our opponent's face.'

"That didn't happen. What happened here, though, it was a negative ad, but clearly not designed to make fun of his face. It was designed to let people believe that he did not have a sufficient gravitas, especially on international affairs, and this came out of our work.

"What wasn't appreciated or anticipated, and this I think is really, really part of the new environment on attack advertising, was how effective Warren and his group sitting around in the war room were in responding to this.

"Because they immediately defined, what we were trying very clumsily to say, in terms that far more potent about us than we ever said about them. And as soon as it became known we were making fun of someone's face, then we were sort of saying something horrible about ourselves."

Enright suggested there's no way to explain something like that away. Gregg said no before adding, "Twenty years later, and I'm still trying to explain it away."

Kinsella said reaction amongst Liberals to the ad was mixed, but "the guy whose instincts I always trust is Chretien, and I think he'd being waiting probably his entire adult life for this allegation to be made."

John Rae, the Liberals' campaign manager and brother of Bob Rae, told everyone to calm down and that they would wait evaluate the situation.

The first wave of outrage came from Conservatives, "and so we thought that would the outrage we thought we'd amplify to the world," Kinsella said.

The discussion didn't go into the part of the story where Gregg and others reportedly argued that had the ad allowed to continue running, it would have worked.

More at this Wikipedia entry: 1993 Chretien attack ad

The panel also talked about the equally goofy "Soldiers. With guns. On our streets" ad the Liberals ran in 2006.

Kinsella said that ad was part of a barrage that did slow Harper's momentum. However, the guns ad -- which did attract wide ridicule -- wasn't even broadcast; it was only posted to the Liberal website. The Liberals then pulled it, which reinforced the message that they goofed.

But here's the problem: While negative advertising can be a useful tactic for political parties, it has the unfortunate side effect of seriously damaging the overall political process.

"I think it is a race to the bottom," Gregg said, who describes himself as "born again" on the issue.

He compared it to McDonald's claiming Burger King's burgers were infested with botulism, and Burger King retaliating by claiming McDonald's uses e. coli-tainted beef.

"And pretty soon, no one is eating hamburgers any more," he said.

In terms of our democracy, people stop believing politics can be a force for public good, Gregg said.

Kinsella said that's a cop-out for lazy voters. People pay attention to negative ads, he said.

Phillips said there is research that negative ads can hurt the democratic process, but there is also evidence that issue-based negative ads can increase interest.

"The problem happens when we start going to things that aren't true, because that really turns people off," she said.

Note

If you want to save the audio of the discussion, go to this CBC podcasting page and download the latest mp3. The discussion leads off the file.