The Center for Media and Democracy has released a report on the continuing use of corporate video news releases by local stations across the country. See the executive summary at this link. The report indicates that 77 stations have continued to use the fake news releases designed to appear as though done by local news reporters but carrying the corporations' messages. One of those statioins is Champaign's own WCIA-3.
The Center followed the use of just 36 VNRs over a ten-month period and found that those 36 VNRs were used by 77 stations on a total of 98 occasions without identification as corporation VNRs. Here's what the summary says about the stations' journalistic standards on VNR usage.
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.
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In every VNR broadcast that CMD documented, the TV station altered the VNR's appearance. Newsrooms added station-branded graphics and overlays, to make VNRs indistinguishable from reports that genuinely originated from their station. A station reporter or anchor re-voiced the VNR in more than 60 percent of the VNR broadcasts, sometimes repeating the publicist's original narration word-for-word.
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While TV stations often edit VNRs for length, in only seven of the 87 VNR broadcasts documented by CMD did stations add any independently-gathered footage or information to the segment. In all other cases, the entire aired "report" was derived from a VNR and its accompanying script. In 31 of the 87 VNR broadcasts, the entire aired "report" was the entire pre-packaged VNR.
This use of corporate PR programs as replacements for independent newsgathering by the stations and the willingness to disguise the source of the reports from viewers means that news programs simply cannot be trusted. You may want to write your local station and ask them to quit showing VNRs without disclosing the corporate sponsor of the spot. If you are in Champaign County, you can contact WCIA-3 at the following numbers.
WCIA Programming..........(217) 356.8333
e-mail: [email protected]
Let them know that you do not approve their use of corporate VNRs. Tell them that you expect them to treat their viewers with respect and provide genuine journalistic coverage of events and developments.
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