When is the TV news not the TV news?
When it's a "placed story" by Big Pharma.
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.
Source: Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed Center for Media and Democracy
2 comments:
there was a charming little book about PR techiques published few years back. It was named "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You"
The motto was something like "A well-done PR job is the one that you don't notice - although you may notice that your opinions have been changing over time."
Many PR people are ex-journalists.
The progressive community could do some good by using VNR's and other PR techniques that big corporations employ to communicate their messages.
Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
- Mediahitman
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