The ad aired footage from Bush's 1988 convention speech in which he made the promise. In personal ads, candidates often used personal narratives to build themselves up. This makes it harder for the public to differentiate between what a candidate holds as a personal value and where he stands on an issue. The two areas become integrated. This is understandable, due to newspapers' ability to go into more depth than television.
Television has to keep the viewer interested and has strict time constraints.
Thus, television is more likely to report immediate news because it is more of an immediate medium. Television has very few stories initiated by journalists and depends highly on sound bites from candidates and video of them. Consequently, candidates are able to control what the public hears and sees. They present themselves in a visually pleasing manner and say what is politically correct in order to make themselves look good. In analyzing television, Just, et al. find it to be less harsh on the candidates due to the amount of time the candidates are actually on the air.