'NewsHour' Launches Do-It-Yourself Political Ads

Online tools give users chance to use Facebook info to assemble mock ad attacking themselves

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/11/2012 2:17:14 PM

With campaigns and outside groups spending hundreds of millions to make and place political spots, PBS NewsHour is giving Jane and John Q. Public the chance to create their own political ad, including their own negative ad attacking themselves, all for free and at the click, actually several clicks, of a mouse.

The NewsHour has teamed with Mozilla and Ocupop on AdLibs, an online tool that allows Facebook users to integrate some of that content into a slick campaign ad for or against themselves. Unlike the real political world, users don't get to attack anyone else.

The idea, says NewsHour Political Editor Christina Bellantoni in announcing the app, is to show that there is a science to campaign spots. NewsHour, Mozillla and Ocupop want to help voters get a sense of the power of that political persuasion through the power of remixing online info.

To give it a try, go here.