Opening the black box of political advertising: Internet Archive's Political TV Ad Archive

The Internet Archive's Political TV Ad Archive made tens of thousands of television political ads from the 2016 elections freely searchable online for the first time — giving journalists, researchers, educators, and citizens an unprecedented tool to scrutinize how campaigns shaped the airwaves.

As managing editor from 2015 to 2018, I designed and managed projects that leveraged the Internet Archive's vast TV news collection to increase public knowledge about political advertising. I managed the archive's launch, cultivated editorial partnerships, and led outreach to journalists, fact-checkers, scholars, teachers, librarians, and civic organizations.

The project became an essential resource during the 2016 presidential race, cited by fact-checkers and journalists at the Washington Post, New York Times, Atlantic, PolitiFact, FiveThirtyEight, PBS NewsHour, The Economist, Vox, Politico, and the Wall Street Journal, among many others.