Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed

http://www.gnn.tv/articles/2205/Fake_TV_News_Widespread_and_Undisclosed

A blockbuster new report details how corporations use local news shows to sell their message
Who’s behind your news? Without disclosure, you just don’t know if the report you’re watching about a corporation was secretly funded by and produced for that corporation.

That’s what the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) found in their groundbreaking exposé, “Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed.” This multi-media report is the culmination of an intensive, ten month investigation by CMD. It provides the most extensive account to date of how corporate-funded video news releases – fake TV news – are routinely aired, without disclosure, as though they were independent news reports.

Learn which TV stations they caught and watch footage of the VNRs they tracked, plus see how TV newscasts incorporated them and/or related satellite media tour “interviews.” And then tell the Federal Communications Commission that fake news must stop, by taking part in a joint CMD / Free Press action, here.

This report includes:

Video footage of the 36 video news releases documented in this report, plus footage showing how actual TV newscasts incorporated them and/or a related satellite media tours.

A map showing the locations of the 77 television stations throughout the United States that aired this fake news.

A spreadsheet listing the 77 television stations that aired this fake news, by state.



http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/business/media/06video.html?ex=1301976000&en=076d1af75385c3c1&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Report Faults Video Reports Shown as News

Many television news stations, including some from the nation's largest markets, are continuing to broadcast reports as news without disclosing that the segments were produced by corporations pitching new products, according to a report to be released today by a group that monitors the news media.

Television news directors have said that the segments, known as video news releases, are almost never broadcast, but the group assembled television videotape from 69 stations that it said had broadcast fake news segments in the past 10 months.

The new report was prepared by the Center for Media and Democracy, which is based in Wisconsin and which describes itself as dedicated to "exposing public relations spin and propaganda."

The report said none of the stations had disclosed that the segments were produced by publicists representing companies like General Motors, Capital One and Pfizer.

More..........

:kick:

Ours is Channel 9 news in Syracuse , time for a phone call

I've met him a couple of times at press things about Mad Cow. The VNRs aren't QUITE as bad as they sound, but the fact that they are getting more widespread is kinda scary. There's really no way to fact-check them in a lot of cases, and local news departments, with their budgets being cut continually, now rely on them to greater or lesser extents to fill out the half hour. This is particularly true in business news, because few local news programs actually have a business reporter.

You do or create something that passes for news, and then send it to the news folks. Great PR scheme. People believe what they read/see in the news and don't realize it's really marketing and advertisement.

are they actors? or is anything actually fake?

I see the conflict of interest and self-serving motive, but where is the fake?