From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield. For 20 years, news organizations have increasingly acted as election campaign truth squads,

vetting TV ads for the sort of vile misrepresentations that have so contaminated the political process.

Some believe that such vigilance has chastened sleazy political consultants, at least in the

arena of the 32nd spot, but electioneering has adjusted and is now far beyond a mere media buy.

Pamphleteering, push-polling, last-minute automated telephone barrages have simply moved the slees elsewhere,

often below the radar of the Truth Squads.

So now, to combat such guerrilla tactics, ABCNews.com is deputizing the electorate,

asking readers and viewers to keep their eyes open for campaign excesses.

Mark Halperin heads the political unit of ABC News.

He joins us now.

Mark, welcome to O.T.M.

Thank you so much, Bob.

You describe suspect political communications as messages that are false, logically flawed, racist or race-baiting,

religion-bating, sexist, class class warfaring, or deeply personal.

That's a lot of nasty stuff. What forms does it take?

It can be as low-tech as a flyer left on a windshield Sunday before the election and as high-tech as internet emails or pop-up ads, the content, of course, is what matters,

but these delivery systems are, whether they're low-tech or high-tech, very hard to track,

even for a news organization that's willing to make the effort.

Now, you've covered a lot of election cycles, and you've seen plenty of sleighs,

but there was one particularly egregious example from the past that

inspired this whole watchdog program. Is that right? In 1996 in the Republican primary in New

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