Press chief's faux news reports part of growing campaign trend

As viewers watch scenes from a Little League baseball game, a familiar face appears to tell them that former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. routinely steps off the campaign trail to watch his 10-year-old son play. "Family first and always, and that's the way it needs to be," Ehrlich (R), standing on the sidelines, tells Andy Barth in a three-minute piece that has a similar look and feel to many pieces Barth churned out during more than three decades as a television news reporter in Baltimore. Only this video was not cut for television. It is appearing on the Ehrlich campaign's Web site and Facebook page. And Barth is no longer a TV reporter. He's Ehrlich's press secretary.

In other installments, Barth has "reported" from the Ocean City boardwalk about why people there like Ehrlich better than Gov. Martin O'Malley (D); from a Howard County high school about how impressed the students were by an Ehrlich visit; and from the Eastern Shore about how businesses are struggling with taxes and other burdens blamed on O'Malley. If that doesn't sound like objective reporting, it isn't. But that's the point. The faux news reports by Barth build on a growing trend among political campaigns to bypass traditional media and generate the kind of spots a candidate wants aired. In Ehrlich's case, he is doing so with the help of a veteran reporter who spent three decades building credibility with viewers.