CNN’s Kate Bedingfield Defends Harris Campaign Rewriting News Headlines in Google Ads: Nothing About It Is ‘Unethical’

MATTINGLY: “An Axios review found that Kamala Harris’ campaign has been editing news headlines within Google search ads, making it appear as if major news outlets, some of them, are on her side. For example, a Harris campaign ad featuring a Link to an NPR story reads ‘Harris will lower health costs.’ Now, in reality, there’s no NPR headline or even a line in the NPR story that says this. Google says other political campaigns have done this and it does not violate their policy because the ads are labeled as sponsored. But the ads mimic real news search results so closely it’s caught multiple news outlets off guard. CNN says it was unaware the brand was being featured this way and has reached out to the Harris campaign for comment. Let’s bring back the panel. We were trying to figure this out during the break in terms of, is this something that’s normal? Is this something that campaigns have been using? How do you defend kind of the —“

BEDINGFIELD: “Yeah. Well, this is — this is part of paid advertising. I mean, if you are somebody who’s reading a news outlet on your phone, you’ll see embedded ads come up sometimes in those stories that, you know, on first glance look like a story by the outlet you’re reading. But if you don’t, you know, if you look at it more closely, it says sponsored content. I mean, this is something that the search engines do. It’s part of the way they generate ad revenue. So there’s nothing about it that is, you know, violates their terms or is in any way unethical. I mean, this is, this is part of the way that paid advertising works. And, you know, you’ll see it. It’s certainly not just political campaigns who do it. I mean, just as I am reading things online, sometimes I’ll double, you know, I’ll sort of like double look at something because it seems, it feels like it’s — it’s an authentic piece of content. And then you see it’s paid. So it is incumbent on the, the viewer, the reader, the consumer to have a discerning eye not just on political content but on other advertising.”