Fake News, not The Daily Show

I've been good about going to the gym lately which means I'm listening to podcasts again. I've been listening to old episodes of NPR's On The Media. I heard an report from April about video news releases. They were interviewing someone from the Center for Media and Democracy who had just released a study called Fake TV News. It seems that companies are putting together their own video clips and news stations are airing them unedited, without any attribution (or disclosure) as to the original source, so they appear to be real news.

Companies have been hiring PR companies to produce these pieces to promote their products. News releases are hopefully picked up by the media and reported on. In an effort of make it easier for the customer, if you release a video clip that looks likes news, with a pseudo-journalist reporting on a "story", the the tv stations can air them more easily and are more likely too. In some cases the PR firm releases scripts for the real anchors to read to introduce the stories!

One example was about mp3 players. They had sensationalistic report that video iPods are being used for porn and parents have to protect their children. Then they talked about other mp3 players that are safe (because they can't play video). Who produced this? The three companies who's mp3 players were mentioned as safe, the only name I remember was Panasonic. Other segments come from pharmaceutical and car companies. Here's the beginning of the reports summary:

"Over a ten-month period, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) documented television newsrooms' use of 36 video news releases (VNRs)—a small sample of the thousands produced each year. CMD identified 77 television stations, from those in the largest to the smallest markets, that aired these VNRs or related satellite media tours (SMTs) in 98 separate instances, without disclosure to viewers. Collectively, these 77 stations reach more than half of the U.S. population. The VNRs and SMTs whose broadcast CMD documented were produced by three broadcast PR firms for 49 different clients, including General Motors, Intel, Pfizer and Capital One. In each case, these 77 television stations actively disguised the sponsored content to make it appear to be their own reporting. In almost all cases, stations failed to balance the clients' messages with independently-gathered footage or basic journalistic research. More than one-third of the time, stations aired the pre-packaged VNR in its entirety."

Apparently the FCC does have disclosure requirements that say stations must cite the source of VNRs, but they aren't enforced much. Oh and to make it worse it's not just companies that produce VNRs the US government does as well. At least Congress' GAO says that if you don't report the source it's "illegal covert propaganda". That's good, but the Justice Dept and OMB of the Bush administration says you don't have disclose the source if it's informational. So, Congress says the Bush administration is promoting illegal propaganda to the US public.

So the news really is becoming infomercials and government propaganda. No wonder more people are getting their real news from the Daily Show.