The Model Bill: Government Advertising Transparency

1. 1. Governments should be accountable to their constituents about how they spend public dollars
   2. As it is, it’s difficult to reach detailed conclusions about how governments spend their advertising. Even when states disclose advertising contracts, they are buried in hard to access databases or obscured in broad budget categories like “communications” 
   3. It is appropriate that governments should be transparent about how they place advertisements intentioned to inform citizens about public initiatives 

What is included in the bill

The most elementary transparency bill would require that states or cities report the aggregate amount of advertising spent by state or city agencies in a budget year. That alone would help demystify the proportion of state agency spending on advertising. 

An aggregate number is a good start, but would not necessarily result in the kind of transparency that could result in accountability. For example, if an agency was contracting with companies that produce low-quality advertising content with opaque distribution or audience targets.

Nor would an aggregate number necessarily provide enough information about programmatic advertising spend metrics to scrutinize the value for public dollars. For that, jurisdictions should consider disclosing the following on an annual basis: 

1. 1. The overall advertising spending by each executive agency of the state 
   2. The names of each qualifying local newspaper or website and local broadcast station according to Section 5 of this act;
   3. The names of each advertising vendor which received individual advertising contracts from an executive agency of the state and the amount of the contract
   4. The entity which received the advertising spending, including but not limited to search platforms, national news outlets, digital platforms, etc. 
   5. The amount received by each local news organizations which receive the advertising spending, including which local news organization received which individual advertising buys, the agency and vendor responsible for that buy and the value of that advertising buy

Although advertising contract procurement information is already public, the actual details of state advertising spending is often opaque and sometimes impossible for the public to access.  Studies of state ad spending in Maryland and New Jersey demonstrate the difficulty of accessing government advertising data. From unfulfilled public records requests to lack of ad placement and ad campaign details in contracts, states routinely fall short of disclosing meaningful information about how advertising money is spent.

Cities that have enacted disclosure and tracking requirements for agencies are gleaning important data about how much government advertising is benefitting local news compared to other media outlets. That data is a powerful first step in agencies being more intentional with public money and more strategic in using their existing advertising budget to reach valuable local constituencies with critical information in trusted local news sources.

Examples

New York City

The first government advertising transparency requirement in the nation was established in New York City in 2020. The innovative policy was developed by the Center for Community Media at City University of New York’s Craig Newmark School of Journalism. The Advertising Boost Initiative was initially enacted as an executive order by Mayor Bill de Blasio that required both ad spending transparency and disclosure, as well as a 50 percent set-aside of city agency ad spending for community and ethnic local news outlets. Data collected in the first few years showed ethnic and community media receiving only a small percentage of city agency advertising. In 2021, the disclosure reporting and set-aside requirements were passed by the City Council as Local Law 83. The transparency language in the law requires city agencies to prepare an annual report including “the total amount paid by each entity to media outlets for advertising and the total amount each entity paid to ethnic and community media outlets for advertising.” The annual reports since 2022 show the program has directed millions of dollars to sustain and grow local news coverage at community and ethnic newsrooms in the city.  CCM has since gathered state-level government advertising data and is advocating for similar transparency and set-aside policies statewide.

Chicago

City advertising data gathered in 2021 by journalist and researcher Sam Stecklow for a group of Chicago independent media outlets relied on Freedom of Information Act requests to document advertising spending by city, county, and state agencies. The investigation found that, from 2015 to 2020, city agencies relied on community and ethnic media to place ads, but spent just 18.8% of total dollars in those outlets; non-local news outlets received the bulk of the city’s ad spend. The report resulted in then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot signing an Executive Order, patterned on the NYC program, in 2022 directing city agencies to spend 50 percent of their advertising budgets with community news outlets. The order directs independent nonprofit Public Narrative to create and maintain a directory of eligible community news outlets to receive city agency ad dollars. The EO remains in effect and includes a reporting requirement: “To ensure compliance and transparency … each City department will submit year-end reports to the Mayor’s Office detailing its annual advertising spending. Data regarding each department’s advertising will be made available to the public through the Chicago Data Portal at the beginning of 2024.”

San Francisco

Responding to the advocacy of community and ethnic news outlets, along with California Common Cause, the City Board of Supervisors passed a resolution encouraging city agencies to spend half of their advertising budgets with community and ethnic news outlets. A report by the San Francisco Budget and Legislative Analyst found that only 7 out of 98 community publications received city advertising from 2023-2024; more detailed spending data on ad placements were difficult to assess because of lack of consistency and definitions in city agency advertising documentation. Passed in March 2024, Resolution 117-24 urges city agencies “to include report-back requirements in all city contracts with advertising campaigns”; to develop “a process of reporting how much money is spent in local community and ethnic media each year, so progress can be tracked and accessed by the public”; and “to publicly report how much money is spent on ethnic and community journalism publications each year.”

California

The first statewide bill requiring government advertising transparency and disclosure is AB1511. The bill passed in September 2024 directs agencies to “develop a plan for increasing, and annually report on progress toward increasing, outreach to and investment in ethnic and community media, including small businesses, to help them remain viable platforms for their communities to learn of news of interest to them and to have access to state communications of importance to them and their families.” A similar bill requiring tracking and disclosure was in effect in California from 2020-2023 before sunsetting. A FY 2022-23 report showed that of the state’s total $60.6 million advertising spend statewide, $14.6 million or 24.1 percent was targeted toward the state’s largest ethnic and LGBTQIA communities, but did not specify how advertising funds were allocated among various media platforms. 

Canada

The federal government in Canada began reporting on its advertising spending in FY 2002-03. More than 80 agencies are required to report their advertising activities annually; the data is then published by Public Services and Procurement Canada. The most recent annual report breaks down government agency advertising spending by type of media, type of advertising, total dollars spend, and other metrics.

Transparency Bill

Section 1.  Short Title.

This Act may be cited as the “Government Advertising Spending Transparency Act”

Section 2.  Findings.

The [LEGISLATURE] makes the following findings:

(1) [STATE/LOCALITY] benefits from robust local news services that provide trusted and essential information to the community that limits corruption, encourages citizen participation, helps combat misinformation, and mitigates community and individual alienation.

(2) Local news in [STATE/LOCALITY] and throughout the country is struggling with newspaper advertising dropping 82 percent nationally since 2000, contributing to a 57 percent drop in the number of reporters at newspapers and thousands of closures.

(3) Local news outlets are trusted sources of information for communities throughout [STATE/LOCALITY] and advertising spending with these outlets carries a substantial benefit for the effective dissemination of important government information to the communities it serves.

(4) Government initiatives to increase spending on local news advertising has been manifestly successful in both supporting local news outlets and improving the information diet of communities in several major cities, 

(4.1) The public has a right to know where government is spending its advertising dollars and what proportion of those dollars are going to local [LOCAL/COMMUNITY/ETHNIC] news outlets,

(4.2) [STATE/LOCALITY] is required to implement an initiative in cooperation with an independent third-party monitor such as an educational or nonprofit civic organization to annually track and report the amount and distribution of its advertising spending to the public, 

(4.3) The annual tracking report must include a categorical breakdown of the advertising spend by (a) the overall advertising spending by each executive agency of the state; (b) the names of each advertising vendor which received individual advertising contracts from an executive agency of the state and the amount of the contract(s); (c) the entity which received the advertising spending, categorized by media type including but not limited to search platforms, national news outlets, digital platforms, local news outlets, etc. (e) the general subject matter of the advertising placement (i.e. military recruitment, public health, job training, etc.)

(5) [STATE/LOCALITY] shall implement such an initiative while preserving the editorial independence of local news outlets selling advertising space under this law, and recognizes that any diversion of advertising spending that has the effect or appearance of an attempt to influence the editorial content of a Local News Organization violates the federal and state guarantees of freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

DEFINITIONS

In order to disclose data according to the above criteria, government should adopt the following relevant definitions

Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)  definition of advertising

Advertisement means any single message prepared for placement in communication media, regardless of the number of placements.