By Amanda Zamora/ProPublica
Outside groups are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to influence the coming elections – money that has long been hard to track.
This summer, the Federal Communications Commission ordered TV stations to pull back the curtain a bit, requiring them to publish online detailed records of political ad buys.
Before, these records were only available by visiting stations in person, an issue ProPublica spotlighted in our Free The Files coverage.
So far the new rule only covers the top 50 markets, and it’s impossible to search these files by candidate or political group – meaning it’s impossible to get a full picture of the spending.
We want to change that.
Posted on September 28, 2012