Black-owned media wonder, Where are the campaign ads? | McClatchy Washington Bureau

In an election year in which presidential candidates and supporting political action committees could spend upward of $2 billion on political advertising, local African American-owned media outlets across the country say they’re getting few ad buys.

It’s a long-standing complaint from African-American-owned newspapers, radio and television stations and black elected officials that’s gotten louder each presidential election year – even during Barack Obama’s successful 2008 and 2012 campaigns.

“We’ve been traditionally frustrated,” said James Winston, president of the National Association of Black Broadcasters. “It seems that every campaign season the parties view advertising in African-American-owned media as an afterthought, usually a week or two before the election.”

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus say they’ve been frustrated, too. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., who criticized Obama’s 2012 campaign, saying it didn’t spend enough on black-owned media, in a 2013 speech to the National Newspapers Publishers Association, said he’d taken his concerns directly to Clinton campaign officials recently.

“I’ve talked with (campaign Chairman) John Podesta, and they at least know my sentiments, and I’ve made it known to the public that I don’t think they are conducting the kind of ground game that I would conduct, and I don’t think they’re spending enough money in black newspapers and radio,” he said.

Democrats aren’t the only ones complaining.

Clarence McKee, an African-American Trump supporter who was a Federal Communications Commission attorney, thinks that Trump’s campaign and the Republican Party are leaving votes on the table by not courting African-Americans voters through local black-owned media.

He said the party is missing out on reaching some of Florida’s 237,568 African-American registered voters who aren’t affiliated with any party and may be persuaded to cast ballots for Trump and GOP congressional candidates.

“It’s one side saying, ‘We don’t have to worry about those folks’ and the Republican Party establishment saying, ‘We don’t need them. They won’t vote for us, anyway,’ ” McKee said.

Tad Devine, a political consultant who worked on Democratic presidential campaigns from Al Gore to Bernie Sanders, said he’s heard and understands the concerns. He said campaigns aren’t slighting local black-owned media. It’s just a matter of economics.

“You know it’s really important to mobilize African-American voters in Detroit if you want to win Michigan, for example,” he said. “The owners of the African-American outlets in Detroit say, ‘Well, listen, if you want to reach that audience our newspaper or our publication is the best way to do it.’ You look at the numbers that are associated with the reach of that publication and they’re miniscule compared to buying an ad on network television that reaches a very large African-American audience.”

It’s not just minority newspapers. With shrinking circulations, newspapers overall are struggling with falling ad revenue. A Pew Center report in January found that newspaper ad revenue fell 8 percent in 2015. And in 2016, newspapers find themselves as the fifth choice of political campaigns for ads.

Borrell Associates, an ad-tracking firm, said that of an estimated $11.7 billion that will be spent on campaigns this election cycle, $5.9 billion will go to broadcast television, $1.2 billion to cable, $1.2 billion to digital/online, $916.1 million to radio and $882 million to newspapers.

Clinton campaign officials say they’re trying to straddle local and national media in reaching out to black voters. Earlier this month, the campaign bought ads in some of Florida’s African-American, Haitian and Caribbean-oriented newspapers.

Her campaign has placed more than 90 ads in African-American newspapers nationwide and aired over 300 ads on radio stations with large African-American audiences, a campaign aide said.

“We are not taking anything for granted, and we have made key investments in the African-American community through outreach, paid media and grass-roots organizing,” said Marlon Marshall, Clinton’s director of state campaigns and political engagement.

Tuesday, the campaign announced that it will air a radio ad aimed at African-American millennials that will run in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Clinton’s campaign will buy ad time on 18 of the top 20 shows with large African-American audiences, including “Empire,” the “Steve Harvey Show,” “Wendy Williams,” “Judge Judy” and local newscasts, the campaign aide said.

In addition, the campaign said it intends to run local and national ads on cable networks with large African-American viewership such as ESPN, Lifetime, OWN, A&E and Fox News.

“It won’t just be the big outlets,” Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said of the Clinton campaign’s black media strategy heading into November. “It’s going to be small weekly newspapers as well.”

Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee did not respond to emails and phone calls seeking interviews and comment.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said the presidential campaigns haven’t placed ads recently in Florida black-owned newspapers. Hillary Clinton’s campaign placed ads in the state’s black-owned papers earlier this month.