Jackson Jambalaya

So, is this done to stop the blitz of "helpful" infomercials we get right before elections? Or is something else up?

This is the long overdue retribution from Tate Reeves to Supertalk, which shamelessly hitched its wagon totally to Billy Hewes' campaign in the GOP primary, to the extent of glorifying negative comments and rumors about Reeves on the air.

It is good policy in general. However, it will never be signed by Bryant, who is a favorite of Supertalk.

A good other alternative would be to prohibit the name or voice of any public or elected official in any ad. This would eliminate the incentive for politicians and agency heads to spend money on ads that have the secondary effect of publicizing their names during the off years, and thus would slow down the expenditures on ads.

I can guess where you are going with this KF but I'm telling you that -- if you'll consider reason on this -- there a many, many small radio stations in this state that will suffer along with Supertalk. You focus on the big top line Supertalk spend but for some smaller stations the budgetary impacts will hurt more.

On the other hand, in general, this legislation to reduce what is effectively state radio station welfare will go far to bolster the arguments that state funding of MPB needs to end.

looks like WFMN has upset the wrong people

5:19, why should the effect on "small stations budgetary impact" matter? It is not the taxpayers responsibility to keep small stations in business.

I prefer my tax dollars at MDOT be spent on building roads instead of the politicians advertising some program. I prefer my tax dollars at the Health Dept. Be spent on rural health care than on some radio/TV advertisement.

Can't agree strongly enough with 6:36 in chastising the logic of 5:19. Advertising (to me) is only appropriate when your customer has a choice of products. There ain't but one DOT. There ain't but one Department of Employment Security. There are no private sector businesses competing with the Wildlife guys.

It's not the job of the public sector to spend its funds in order to keep small radio stations in business.

And the only reason we have advertising/notice bucks being spent to prop up small town newspapers is because of legal requirements re publishing certain items. Otherwise, we should shitcan all that paid-for crap too.

I'm reminded of that dunce Eric Stringfellow, who, ten years back made a grande plea for state agencies to stay in downtown Jacktown. His mantra was 'These agencies owe it to the community to remain anchors and have a presence in these areas'.

The result of this bill, if it becomes law, might just be a cutback in Gallo's paid vacation days from 50 to 40.

Payback for choosing or backing the wrong Person for the
Lt. Gov. Race. Strictly going after Steve Patterson.

Steve Davenport, I meant

Hm. Abuses exist, but public health does include raising public awareness of health issues, and radio/TV spots hit people who will never read print ads.

This seems like too blunt an instrument.

... Is UMMC a "state agency"? What about University Physicians?

its got VETO written all over it>

Good riddance. This will eliminate the Steve Davenports of the world who glom on politicians and the system, use his "ole miss" connections to pad his pockets while providing zero value.

Maybe they'll redirect all that advertising money to The Clarion Ledger and save the newspaper. All Hampton needs to do is follow Gallo's lead and kiss Bryant's butt as often as possible.

Guess that takes out the university and college advertisements you see during halftime.

@8:38

Incorrect. most of those ads are paid for by university's private foundations.; those will surely continue on.

So if we were to have an epidemic, the Health Dept. couldn't put out information about any program started to deal with the crisis? For example, they couldn't advertise where vaccinations are available and when? Nor could they advertise any testing program for exposures to the public should there be a terrorist attack of some kind ?

As is common these days when emotion trumps reason, this is poorly thought out.

Surely, the abuse can be stopped without killing all agency advertising , some of which can provide important information to the public.

Wouldn't it be nice if public service trumped partisan politics and the male ego ?

And, while the " why should our tax dollars go to radio?" seems reasonable if every action took place in a vacuum, there was a time when we understood that there are interdependencies and interconnections in society and some connections are vital. In a democratic republic, keeping citizens informed is vital or should be. And, after all, Hewes effort to use agency advertising for his personal gain may have contributed to his defeat.

I remember the fat public safety commissioner running a series of ads starring himself as he was running for AG. Hopefully this type of nonsense will be stopped.

5:19, why should the effect on "small stations budgetary impact" matter? It is not the taxpayers responsibility to keep small stations in business.

Can't agree strongly enough with 6:36 in chastising the logic of 5:19.

Well if you idiots would notice in the very next paragraph that I refer to the practice as "state radio station welfare", and if you kept up to speed on matters here @JJ, you'd understand I'm not advocating in favor of continuance but rather drawing attention to KF's historic focus on only the Supertalk aspect of the spend.

Let me suggest that next time you pull your heads out of your asses and focus on reading comprehension.

Rookie move by the RINO Lt. Governor. He's already getting crapped on up and down the state for trying to derail the illegal immigration legislation. This move is only going to encourage the Supertalkers to fan the flames.

Eight years is mighty long.

CheeseTater's aspiration to be Guv can't afford to have Davenport beating an anti-Reeves drum at least 6 hours a day all that time.

It will take a toll.

Way to go Tater. Pure politics. And kudos for killing the legislative prayer caucus. Even got rid of the Chaplain too!

It's about time.

This runs deeper than Reeves-Hughes. Many people will never forget Paul Galtelli's little hit job and ambush he pulled on Charlie Ross a few years ago, because he dared to run against Davenport's chosen candidate. If Supertalk is going to be an unofficial propaganda minister for certain candidates, they shouldn't get a dime of taxpayer money.

Funnily enough, the Lt. Gov. capitalized on this as much as or more than any state official when he was Treasurer.

9:19, what, pray tell, is the "legislative prayer caucus?"

"A good other alternative would be to prohibit the name or voice of any public or elected official in any ad. This would eliminate the incentive for politicians and agency heads to spend money on ads that have the secondary effect of publicizing their names during the off years, and thus would slow down the expenditures on ads."

Doesn't this accomplish the goal of the legislation? MDH gets to make PSAs about vaccination programs, and we don't get an election year blitz of B.S. (at least, that we have to pay for).

Blunt instruments are created by blunt minds. I hope voters remember the authors of some of the more bone-headed bills we've seen this year.

Why just tv and radio? Advertising is placed in 3 mediums: tv, radio, and print. Because of that error, this appears to be political instead of budgetary. Either it applies to all 3 mediums equally or it should not be done. If this did come from T Reeves or his people, it’s going to backfire on them because it makes you look like a pouting child taking his ball and going home.

I agree budgets needs to be looked at and trimmed but all advertising budgets should be trimmed for all formats, not just who you don’t like. Turns this issue into a petty child’s argument. I’m not fond of 40 year olds acting like petty children. If I’m a reporter and I put a mic in your face and point blank say---it appears this legislation is biased towards specific media which makes this political instead of policy, can you explain why print media is not affected---you have absolutely no logical answer.

4:50 has great comment re prohibiting name/voice of public/elected official in any ad. (@8:49 am, grow up. You really don’t want to start a who-uses-tv/cledger-the most-to-promote-oneself-issue). Also agree that agencies should never advertise to say—hey, we’re here. If the citizens need to be made aware of an important situation, then the agency should use all mediums to ensure the information is relayed to the citizens. Public service announcements should also be made across all formats.

Should state agencies advertise on radio and tv? Do we really need it? Then there is the matter of politics. Davenport is the one who decided to get involved in intraparty politics. Whether he did it for his own purposes or the Bryant cabal kind of leaned on him to do it is another question but fact is, it happened.

As for the vaccines ads you mentioned as an example, I don't think the typical listener of supertalk would meet the target demographic for such ads.

No taxpayer funding of liberal issue-advocate MPB.

"No state agency, as defined in Section 25-9-107(d), shall expend any appropriated funds for the purpose of advertising any program of the agency on radio or television."

This doesn't single out supertalk. Informing the non-supertalk listening public about vaccine programs would also be affected.

What about Amber alerts and other emergency broadcast alerts, an announcement from MEMA, post disaster, that there is a free clinic, water truck or disaster relief program, etc.? What about anti-litter campaigns? If you can't tell people about government programs or initiatives on the radio or tv, how do you tell them?

Nobody likes their tax dollars going to fund someone's campaign. This bill can be fixed pretty easily and, hopefully, it will pass after that.

The bill is going nowhere. It won't make it out of a House committee should it even get there.

There is no doubt that ads like Tate Reeves' college funding ads and Steve Simpson's Click it or Ticket crap are self-serving and free promotion for their political careers. I'm sure the radio stations would be happy to run some free public service announcements for messages that truly need to reach the public. The threats that the Supertalk nation will rise up are really funny. You could probably fit them all inside of a McDonald's and most would be eligible for the senior citizen discout.

Mr. Crowley, interesting tone in your comment. I hope you aren't opposed to expression of faith in the public forum.

The Legislative Prayer and Ministry Caucus is just that. A group of legislators who wish to exercise their First Amendment rights.

I doubt JJ allows links, so google "Starkville Daily News Prayer". It's the 2nd result, an article from Jan. 22.

Of course JJ allows links. Why would you assume otherwise?

I guess this means the old school PSA's (public service annoucments) are gone in favor of paid stuff?

10:42, I read the Starkville Daily News story. It confirmed what I suspected.

A handful of god-pimpin' legislators pissed away taxpayer time with a meaningless Senate resolution blessing their prayer meeting.

It wasn't about exercise of their first amendment rights or expression of faith. It was about them screaming "Look at me! Look at me! I'm a big Christian, watch me worship."

The Lt.Gov. recognized it as unnecessary bullshit and killed it.

Thank you, Lt. Gov. Reeves, for providing some sane leadership at the Capitol.

The key to this is that "appropriated funds" cannot be used to advertise the program. Other funds are fine to use. This means that College Savings ads, the Universities' ads, University Physicians' ads, etc., will still run since they're likely paid for by non-State-appropriated funds. The bill doesn't say anything about banning all advertising by a State agency; it just regulates how that agency pays for the ad.

Public service announcements are a requirement of licensing for radio and television stations. Do you goobers really think Mississippians would be at risk of never again hearing an announcement of an epidemic?

8:53 aka 5:19, I do hope your blood pressure level has gone down with the passage of time.

Crowley: The Mississippi Legislature can NOT control or affect the requirements for PSAs.

As an addendum: Crowley's comments regarding Gallo's tulip-dances with Bryant remind me of his ongoing refusal to touch the subject of the Desota County Davis boys. Reckon he's too busy researching gas prices in the Metro.

Excuse me KF, but the wording didn't make a distinction between talk radio and all other radio did it?
Or did I miss something?

How much money does the state spend on advertising each year?

Curt, I'm not sure who is the " goober" when it comes to PSAs.

IF any state agency is paying to have anything AIRED since the deregualtion of PSAs, then that should be stopped. The money is likely being spent in creating the PSA "announcement".

PSAs are not just for " public health and safety" but also to educate and inform and even to change behavior ( don't smoke, don't use drugs, get more exercise, exercise your right to vote) with " inform" being the operative word here. And, broadcasters now enjoy pretty much carte blanche in the applications they approve with an " eye toward the reputation of the group making the application". The bill to de-regulate PSAs was supposed to reduce the paperwork involved but went, as usual, too far thanks to lobbyists who seized an opportunity.

This bill is attempting to deal with a problem created by deregulation and current language is not specific enough to do that and will, instead, make it more difficult for all agencies to spend money on creating PSAs as the question will be " is it a PSA or an ad"?

They could ban elected or appointed people from appearing or using their voices or identifying themselves in all these promotions, but then THEIR guy couldn't either use that venue either so they want control over who can or can't while they hold power.

PS, the station can make the money if they or their employees can find ways to participate in production .

Something else that is to be considered - there is a significant of federal dollars that MS receives as "grants" that require promotion and advertising for whatever the root issue is that the grant deals with. This would put unnecessary regulations on fulfilling those obligations.

This bill isn't a forum for "should state agencies advertise or not." This bill grows government by putting yet another, practically unworkable, layer of government regulations on an already cumbersome process.

9:01 am good points

Burning down the lawn and the house with it isn't a good way to get rid of the weed in Tate's yard.

Oh, really? Go check out how much money has gone to Frontier Strategies? You think this is just going to affect Supertalk? There are other groups that have been living off of the state for years.

Of course, it's not going to affect just Supertalk...that's why IF Tate is going after Supertalk, he's burning the yard and house. If he's not, then the bill isn't nearly specific enough.

Ads reminding me to wear my seatbelt? Ads reminding me that I should watch out for deer on the side of the road? Ads encouraging the use of government services I don't want to provide to start with? Government doesn't need to advertise. Great to see this bill.

Doesn't anybody see the hypocrisy in Tate's pushing this bill? As Treasurer, Tate spent 3.2 million promoting himself under the guise of promoting MPACT. He should be ashamed to look at himself in the mirror.