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Local KRON and KPIX-CBS TV News Is Bought and You Are Sold Down the River
Looking at the Free Press's list of the stations running corporate press releases as news (http://www.prwatch.org/map/TV_Stations), they include one SF station, the CBS affiliate. But it seems there's a lot more of this (and at least one more flavor) than even they realize. Here was the headline in Wednesday's SF Chronicle: "Cash-strapped KRON is letting advertisers buy into news broadcasts. The boss says it's just a sign of the times."
Curiously, one of the quotes in the story comes from an exec at the very CBS affiliate nailed by Free Press (http://www.freepress.net/fakenews/). "We draw a strict line between news and sales, and we don't do product placement on our news," said Dan Rosenheim, news director at CBS 5-TV (KPIX). He added that the station does not accept any kind of freebies, including travel. "If this policy is violated we would reimburse, and it might be a disciplinary issue internally." Of course, this is a *totally* different situation, not at *all* analogous to the VNR kerfuffle, and to suggest otherwise merely confirms our lack of understanding of TV news. I think I feel a song coming on (with apologies to the Buggles): "VNRs killed the news stations' star ..."
Curiously, one of the quotes in the story comes from an exec at the very CBS affiliate nailed by Free Press (http://www.freepress.net/fakenews/). "We draw a strict line between news and sales, and we don't do product placement on our news," said Dan Rosenheim, news director at CBS 5-TV (KPIX). He added that the station does not accept any kind of freebies, including travel. "If this policy is violated we would reimburse, and it might be a disciplinary issue internally." Of course, this is a *totally* different situation, not at *all* analogous to the VNR kerfuffle, and to suggest otherwise merely confirms our lack of understanding of TV news. I think I feel a song coming on (with apologies to the Buggles): "VNRs killed the news stations' star ..."
Cash-strapped KRON is letting advertisers buy into news broadcasts.
The boss says it's just a sign of the times.
Evelyn Nussenbaum, Special to The Chronicle
Wednesday, April 5, 2006
"Australia Week" was a major production for the financially strapped KRON (Channel 4). For five straight days in early March, the station dedicated three hours of its five-hour morning newscast to their reporters' adventures Down Under.
There were segments touting "Sydney by Hot Air Balloon," "Shopping in Sydney," "a look at the varieties of fish found in Australia and the many ways of preparing them" as well as a sit-down interview with an Australian tourism official, during which a KRON reporter noted "the diversity of an Australian vacation, whether you're interested in nature, urban areas or both."
If this sounds like a travel brochure for the country, it was. Tourism Australia, the government body that promotes travel to the country, paid the airfare of the station's six reporters and their food and lodging expenses. In addition, Tourism Australia shelled out an undisclosed amount for advertising time on KRON during the special.
The special and others like it have raised more than a few eyebrows in the newsroom. "We're appalled," said one staffer, who declined to be named, fearing retribution. "We essentially let the government of Australia become our news directors."
To Mark Antonitis, KRON's general manager, the encroachment of advertising into programming is just the reality of print and television news today. KRON, until it was purchased six years ago by Young Broadcasting from the Chronicle Publishing Co. (which also sold The Chronicle to the Hearst Corp.), was one of the most respected broadcast outfits in the region, known for its deep bench of reporting talent, in-depth stories and documentaries.
But now business is bad. And "when business is bad, you have to consider opportunities," said Antonitis. "And you have to be creative and do things you might have found difficult in the past." KRON's average rating for its morning news in early March was 1.14, extremely low, with approximately 28,000 households tuning in.
Citing a weak advertising market, Antonitis said he is looking for new ways to make money. That includes charging "product integration fees" to advertisers who want to be included in a story. In February, KRON broadcast an 11-part "Spa Spectacular," in which each featured spa paid a fee -- he won't say how much -- and bought advertising. Anchors offered viewers a chance to buy half-price spa certificates at the end of each segment.
Antonitis is not the only news executive experimenting with letting advertisers inside his newscasts. Reporters at Univision's KMEX in Los Angeles have an arrangement in which they interview Kaiser doctors and patients for health stories and shoot footage at Kaiser facilities because Kaiser Permanente pays a fee in return. Fox affiliate KPTV in Portland, Ore., told the Hollywood Reporter that it recently launched "More Good Day Oregon," a lifestyle-themed extension of its morning news, in the hopes of luring such integration deals. A recent KPTV show featured a local shopping center in a story about last-minute gifts.
Newspapers are not exempt, either. Late last year, the San Francisco Examiner agreed to start labeling a restaurant review column as advertising after media watchdog Gradethenews.org published the fact that the column was produced solely to attract restaurant ads and that the reviews were uniformly positive.
To observers inside and outside KRON, the recent turn of events boils down to a simple question: Is it better to produce advertising-driven "news" than no news at all? Most journalists would choose the latter. While product integration is common in the entertainment business, it's still an anomaly in the news world.
"We draw a strict line between news and sales, and we don't do product placement on our news," said Dan Rosenheim, news director at CBS 5-TV (KPIX). He added that the station does not accept any kind of freebies, including travel. "If this policy is violated we would reimburse, and it might be a disciplinary issue internally."
KTVU News Director Ed Chapuis described a similar policy: "All of KTVU's news reporting is produced without pressure or influence from advertisers."
Among the other local major stations, KGO declined to comment and KQED did not return calls by press time.
"This is fine for any advertiser who wants to get exposure; I don't blame them," said Aly Colón, who teaches ethics at the Poynter Institute for journalists. "But it's a death knell for any news organization that wants to maintain its credibility."
Tension between bean counters and journalists is as old as the profession. Journalists have been wringing their hands for years over the blurring of the traditional lines between news and advertising departments. In 1995, Carol Marin, WMAQ Chicago's star reporter, was suspended for three nights after refusing to end a fire safety story by listing retailers that carried fire safety brochures, because the retailers had also sponsored the report. She ultimately resigned.
The Los Angeles Times' editorial credibility took a hit when the Los Angeles Times Business Journal broke the story that its publisher had agreed to share ad revenues with the Staples Center sports arena, after the Times devoted an entire issue of its magazine to the arena's opening. The incident caused deep divisions between the Times' executive leadership and newsroom.
But the economic pressures have never been this bad, say executives like Antonitis. And when the choice is laying off more employees or making journalistic compromises, Antonitis is clear on where he comes down. "I really don't like to lay people off, and there are lots of families that are counting on me to protect them from the ups and downs of the economic cycle."
Antonitis said he is protecting KRON's credibility by disclosing all partnerships in scripts or the credits. A typical disclaimer, he said, might read: "KRON4 and such-and-such a spa have teamed up to bring you these half-price deals." He also insisted that integrations and contest giveaways are limited to the morning news hours, when viewers expect lighter fare. "You have to find appropriate places inside appropriate newscasts," he said, "and if a hard-news story came along, we would blow out the paid stuff. KRON has maintained full editorial control."
The pressure on Antonitis and those in his industry is real. Advertising growth for local television stations is slowing, squeezed by the proliferation of cable channels and the Internet. But KRON has an additional burden -- the loss of its NBC affiliation four years ago and, with it, the network programming that attracts the highest-priced advertising.
The station also has a corporate parent with a crushing debt load, incurred at least partly by the purchase of KRON itself. Young Broadcasting, which owns nine other television stations in the United States, paid a record $823 million for KRON in 1999, beating out NBC. But the company never made the money back. Young lost $91 million in 2005, doubling its loss from the year before, and carries $782 million in debt. Young's stock has plummeted from a high of $79 a share to $3 in the past eight years. Few Wall Street analysts even bother to cover the company anymore. Antonitis won't say whether KRON itself is making money, although TV newsrooms typically don't make a profit. Sponsor integration is just one of the ways he's trying to stay afloat. Newsroom insiders estimate that half the staff has left, either through layoffs or attrition. They include producers, editors and reporters, including high-priced talent such as Emerald Yeh. Antonitis has replaced standard two-person news crews with one-man bands he calls video journalists, many of them young and inexperienced. They carry their own cameras, do their own interviews and edit their own footage. Last week, KRON signed a deal to become an affiliate with the new FOX network, MyNetworkTV, which targets demographically desirable 18- to 45-year-old men. The hope is that deep-pocketed advertisers will follow.
It's not clear whether the disclaimers for the Australia and the spa stories were detailed enough for KRON viewers to understand the new business arrangements, so it's difficult to know if they cared or even noticed. But faced with the prospect of laying off more people or, in the worst-case scenario, cutting out the news, Antonitis is betting that putting advertisers into newscasts will keep news programming alive.
"Some things we try will work, and others won't," said Antonitis, who added rather cheerfully, "Not one viewer has complained about any of these initiatives."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/04/05/DDGBNI2OF41.DTL&type=printable
-------------------------------------------------
more at http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/04/1813532_comment.php
Take Action at http://action.freepress.net/campaign/fakenews
The boss says it's just a sign of the times.
Evelyn Nussenbaum, Special to The Chronicle
Wednesday, April 5, 2006
"Australia Week" was a major production for the financially strapped KRON (Channel 4). For five straight days in early March, the station dedicated three hours of its five-hour morning newscast to their reporters' adventures Down Under.
There were segments touting "Sydney by Hot Air Balloon," "Shopping in Sydney," "a look at the varieties of fish found in Australia and the many ways of preparing them" as well as a sit-down interview with an Australian tourism official, during which a KRON reporter noted "the diversity of an Australian vacation, whether you're interested in nature, urban areas or both."
If this sounds like a travel brochure for the country, it was. Tourism Australia, the government body that promotes travel to the country, paid the airfare of the station's six reporters and their food and lodging expenses. In addition, Tourism Australia shelled out an undisclosed amount for advertising time on KRON during the special.
The special and others like it have raised more than a few eyebrows in the newsroom. "We're appalled," said one staffer, who declined to be named, fearing retribution. "We essentially let the government of Australia become our news directors."
To Mark Antonitis, KRON's general manager, the encroachment of advertising into programming is just the reality of print and television news today. KRON, until it was purchased six years ago by Young Broadcasting from the Chronicle Publishing Co. (which also sold The Chronicle to the Hearst Corp.), was one of the most respected broadcast outfits in the region, known for its deep bench of reporting talent, in-depth stories and documentaries.
But now business is bad. And "when business is bad, you have to consider opportunities," said Antonitis. "And you have to be creative and do things you might have found difficult in the past." KRON's average rating for its morning news in early March was 1.14, extremely low, with approximately 28,000 households tuning in.
Citing a weak advertising market, Antonitis said he is looking for new ways to make money. That includes charging "product integration fees" to advertisers who want to be included in a story. In February, KRON broadcast an 11-part "Spa Spectacular," in which each featured spa paid a fee -- he won't say how much -- and bought advertising. Anchors offered viewers a chance to buy half-price spa certificates at the end of each segment.
Antonitis is not the only news executive experimenting with letting advertisers inside his newscasts. Reporters at Univision's KMEX in Los Angeles have an arrangement in which they interview Kaiser doctors and patients for health stories and shoot footage at Kaiser facilities because Kaiser Permanente pays a fee in return. Fox affiliate KPTV in Portland, Ore., told the Hollywood Reporter that it recently launched "More Good Day Oregon," a lifestyle-themed extension of its morning news, in the hopes of luring such integration deals. A recent KPTV show featured a local shopping center in a story about last-minute gifts.
Newspapers are not exempt, either. Late last year, the San Francisco Examiner agreed to start labeling a restaurant review column as advertising after media watchdog Gradethenews.org published the fact that the column was produced solely to attract restaurant ads and that the reviews were uniformly positive.
To observers inside and outside KRON, the recent turn of events boils down to a simple question: Is it better to produce advertising-driven "news" than no news at all? Most journalists would choose the latter. While product integration is common in the entertainment business, it's still an anomaly in the news world.
"We draw a strict line between news and sales, and we don't do product placement on our news," said Dan Rosenheim, news director at CBS 5-TV (KPIX). He added that the station does not accept any kind of freebies, including travel. "If this policy is violated we would reimburse, and it might be a disciplinary issue internally."
KTVU News Director Ed Chapuis described a similar policy: "All of KTVU's news reporting is produced without pressure or influence from advertisers."
Among the other local major stations, KGO declined to comment and KQED did not return calls by press time.
"This is fine for any advertiser who wants to get exposure; I don't blame them," said Aly Colón, who teaches ethics at the Poynter Institute for journalists. "But it's a death knell for any news organization that wants to maintain its credibility."
Tension between bean counters and journalists is as old as the profession. Journalists have been wringing their hands for years over the blurring of the traditional lines between news and advertising departments. In 1995, Carol Marin, WMAQ Chicago's star reporter, was suspended for three nights after refusing to end a fire safety story by listing retailers that carried fire safety brochures, because the retailers had also sponsored the report. She ultimately resigned.
The Los Angeles Times' editorial credibility took a hit when the Los Angeles Times Business Journal broke the story that its publisher had agreed to share ad revenues with the Staples Center sports arena, after the Times devoted an entire issue of its magazine to the arena's opening. The incident caused deep divisions between the Times' executive leadership and newsroom.
But the economic pressures have never been this bad, say executives like Antonitis. And when the choice is laying off more employees or making journalistic compromises, Antonitis is clear on where he comes down. "I really don't like to lay people off, and there are lots of families that are counting on me to protect them from the ups and downs of the economic cycle."
Antonitis said he is protecting KRON's credibility by disclosing all partnerships in scripts or the credits. A typical disclaimer, he said, might read: "KRON4 and such-and-such a spa have teamed up to bring you these half-price deals." He also insisted that integrations and contest giveaways are limited to the morning news hours, when viewers expect lighter fare. "You have to find appropriate places inside appropriate newscasts," he said, "and if a hard-news story came along, we would blow out the paid stuff. KRON has maintained full editorial control."
The pressure on Antonitis and those in his industry is real. Advertising growth for local television stations is slowing, squeezed by the proliferation of cable channels and the Internet. But KRON has an additional burden -- the loss of its NBC affiliation four years ago and, with it, the network programming that attracts the highest-priced advertising.
The station also has a corporate parent with a crushing debt load, incurred at least partly by the purchase of KRON itself. Young Broadcasting, which owns nine other television stations in the United States, paid a record $823 million for KRON in 1999, beating out NBC. But the company never made the money back. Young lost $91 million in 2005, doubling its loss from the year before, and carries $782 million in debt. Young's stock has plummeted from a high of $79 a share to $3 in the past eight years. Few Wall Street analysts even bother to cover the company anymore. Antonitis won't say whether KRON itself is making money, although TV newsrooms typically don't make a profit. Sponsor integration is just one of the ways he's trying to stay afloat. Newsroom insiders estimate that half the staff has left, either through layoffs or attrition. They include producers, editors and reporters, including high-priced talent such as Emerald Yeh. Antonitis has replaced standard two-person news crews with one-man bands he calls video journalists, many of them young and inexperienced. They carry their own cameras, do their own interviews and edit their own footage. Last week, KRON signed a deal to become an affiliate with the new FOX network, MyNetworkTV, which targets demographically desirable 18- to 45-year-old men. The hope is that deep-pocketed advertisers will follow.
It's not clear whether the disclaimers for the Australia and the spa stories were detailed enough for KRON viewers to understand the new business arrangements, so it's difficult to know if they cared or even noticed. But faced with the prospect of laying off more people or, in the worst-case scenario, cutting out the news, Antonitis is betting that putting advertisers into newscasts will keep news programming alive.
"Some things we try will work, and others won't," said Antonitis, who added rather cheerfully, "Not one viewer has complained about any of these initiatives."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/04/05/DDGBNI2OF41.DTL&type=printable
-------------------------------------------------
more at http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/04/1813532_comment.php
Take Action at http://action.freepress.net/campaign/fakenews
For more information:
http://www.prwatch.org/fakenews/execsummary
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The lumping in of KPIX with KRON is totally unwarranted. The cases are completely different and to compare the two lacks an understanding of the television newsgathering industry. The article author should do better research and offer a better explanation... call it faulty reporting on faulty reporting.
What KRON is doing is selling product placement in their broadcasts... making money by associating their credibility (or now lack thereof) with certain products.
What KPIX did was run a little video supplied by a Video News Release company as part of a story and neglected inadvertantly to identify it as such. It was only video, with no commentary or script supplied by the VNR firm (In other words, KPIX didn't take some propaganda piece and run it as-is.). KPIX had complete editorial control over what aired, the story was assembled by one of their own reporters who did her own interviews and research, and only used a short amount of video because there was no other way to obtain that particular video except from the company involved. KPIX RECEIVED NO MONEY from anyone for anything.
Morale of this story... get your facts straight before commenting when you have no idea what you're talking about.
What KRON is doing is selling product placement in their broadcasts... making money by associating their credibility (or now lack thereof) with certain products.
What KPIX did was run a little video supplied by a Video News Release company as part of a story and neglected inadvertantly to identify it as such. It was only video, with no commentary or script supplied by the VNR firm (In other words, KPIX didn't take some propaganda piece and run it as-is.). KPIX had complete editorial control over what aired, the story was assembled by one of their own reporters who did her own interviews and research, and only used a short amount of video because there was no other way to obtain that particular video except from the company involved. KPIX RECEIVED NO MONEY from anyone for anything.
Morale of this story... get your facts straight before commenting when you have no idea what you're talking about.
perhaps Dan Rosenheim, beyond-reproach news director at CBS 5-TV (KPIX), just paid us a visit, or maybe it was the diligent and muckraking Thuy Vu
"What KPIX did was run a *little* video supplied by a Video News Release company (paid for by Pfizer) as part of a story and neglected *inadvertantly* to identify it as such."
it was little and inadvertent, see? so what if half of their story and a favorable testimonial came straight from a Pfizer PR piece? so what if they failed to identify it as such?
when in doubt about the corporate media, just remember the words of wisdom from the last commenter: "you have no idea what you're talking about!"
or... you can read more about KPIX's "little" use of the Pfizer VNR below
---------------------------------------
Pharma Deception in San Francisco
Half of station's "medical breakthrough" story came straight from Pfizer
Client(s): Pfizer
Released: January 2006
Aired By: 2 stations
Disclosed By: No stations
On January 27, KPIX-5 in San Francisco devoted nearly three minutes to Exubera, the first inhalable insulin treatment for Type-1 and Type-2 diabetes approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). While any viewer could see that the CBS report had nothing but praise for the new Pfizer product, they might be surprised to learn that half the praise was supplied by Pfizer itself.
In anticipation of FDA approval, the drug giant contracted MultiVu to create a video news release (VNR) about Exubera. The promotional story package included strongly positive soundbites from the medical director of a Texas diabetes clinic, as well as diabetics who participated in the Exubera clinical trial.
In its 10:00 PM feature, KPIX-5 began with legitimate reporting—a look at the San Jose company that spent 20 years developing needle-free insulin delivery. But the rest of the report alternated between original station-gathered footage and canned material from the VNR, with no disclaimer to viewers that some of the video was provided by the makers of Exubera.
Worse, a full 38 seconds of contraindication information provided by MultiVu—the safety information about possible adverse reactions that's required by the FDA—was boiled down to an eight-second aside by KPIX reporter Thuy Vu.
The day before the KPIX-5 report, KAAL-6 (Rochester, MN) ran a ninety-second story on Exubera that was built entirely from the Pfizer VNR, without any form of disclosure to viewers. However, the station's health reporter spent considerably more time on the contraindications than KPIX-5.
To view the original VNR, as well as the KPIX-5 news story, and see for yourself, click on the link below.
"What KPIX did was run a *little* video supplied by a Video News Release company (paid for by Pfizer) as part of a story and neglected *inadvertantly* to identify it as such."
it was little and inadvertent, see? so what if half of their story and a favorable testimonial came straight from a Pfizer PR piece? so what if they failed to identify it as such?
when in doubt about the corporate media, just remember the words of wisdom from the last commenter: "you have no idea what you're talking about!"
or... you can read more about KPIX's "little" use of the Pfizer VNR below
---------------------------------------
Pharma Deception in San Francisco
Half of station's "medical breakthrough" story came straight from Pfizer
Client(s): Pfizer
Released: January 2006
Aired By: 2 stations
Disclosed By: No stations
On January 27, KPIX-5 in San Francisco devoted nearly three minutes to Exubera, the first inhalable insulin treatment for Type-1 and Type-2 diabetes approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). While any viewer could see that the CBS report had nothing but praise for the new Pfizer product, they might be surprised to learn that half the praise was supplied by Pfizer itself.
In anticipation of FDA approval, the drug giant contracted MultiVu to create a video news release (VNR) about Exubera. The promotional story package included strongly positive soundbites from the medical director of a Texas diabetes clinic, as well as diabetics who participated in the Exubera clinical trial.
In its 10:00 PM feature, KPIX-5 began with legitimate reporting—a look at the San Jose company that spent 20 years developing needle-free insulin delivery. But the rest of the report alternated between original station-gathered footage and canned material from the VNR, with no disclaimer to viewers that some of the video was provided by the makers of Exubera.
Worse, a full 38 seconds of contraindication information provided by MultiVu—the safety information about possible adverse reactions that's required by the FDA—was boiled down to an eight-second aside by KPIX reporter Thuy Vu.
The day before the KPIX-5 report, KAAL-6 (Rochester, MN) ran a ninety-second story on Exubera that was built entirely from the Pfizer VNR, without any form of disclosure to viewers. However, the station's health reporter spent considerably more time on the contraindications than KPIX-5.
To view the original VNR, as well as the KPIX-5 news story, and see for yourself, click on the link below.
For more information:
http://www.prwatch.org/fakenews/vnr18
Last week, we launched a major expose on the epidemic of “fake news” in local television newcasts. Working with the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), we found 77 television stations using 36 separate “video news releases,” or VNRs: fake news stories produced by PR firms for corporate clients touting their products and services. News directors looking to cut costs plug them into local news programs without disclosure. The practice is illegal. Some 80% of the stations snared in the investigation are owned by large conglomerates. The list of the worst offenders includes Clear Channel, FOX, CBS, Tribune Co. and Sinclair Broadcast Group - whose Oklahoma City affiliate was caught airing VNRs on six separate occasions. See the campaign and watch the videos here.
Free Press and CMD filed a formal complaint with the FCC and held a press conference last Thursday with FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, who is now calling for a crackdown. Despite repeated claims from broadcasters that they do not air VNRs as news, the new report likely represents just the tip of the iceberg.
Free Press and CMD filed a formal complaint with the FCC and held a press conference last Thursday with FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, who is now calling for a crackdown. Despite repeated claims from broadcasters that they do not air VNRs as news, the new report likely represents just the tip of the iceberg.
For more information:
http://www.FreePress.org
Apparently no one's listening, which is sometimes typical on bulletin boards.
KPIX did it's own reporting on the story in question, which even the Free Press organization's analysis notes. KPIX used some video of the drug in question from a VNR, that's it. Yes, the on-screen notation of the video source was accidently omitted, which the station has acknowledged. They didn't run some puff-piece report prepared by the drug company itself, rather just excerpted a little video. The station maintained complete editorial control. To lump KPIX in with stations that ran news packages produced by outside companies verbatum is just plain unfair.
If you want to debate whether the reporter should have spent more time to talking about the side-effects of the drug, etc., that's a legitimate journalistic debate... but it has nothing to do with the video of the drug iteself used from the VNR.
And for the record, I'm not the news director or the reporter involved, just someone who knows a number of people at KPIX and hates to see folks get a bad rap wrongly.
A side note... Speaking of illegal, have the Free Press people heard about copyright laws? Copyright means you just can't take a clip of something that aired on TV and encode it and put it up on your own web site.... that's Illegal. In this digital world, more and more outlets are taking legal action against those who violate copyright laws by either swiping their text or video.
KPIX did it's own reporting on the story in question, which even the Free Press organization's analysis notes. KPIX used some video of the drug in question from a VNR, that's it. Yes, the on-screen notation of the video source was accidently omitted, which the station has acknowledged. They didn't run some puff-piece report prepared by the drug company itself, rather just excerpted a little video. The station maintained complete editorial control. To lump KPIX in with stations that ran news packages produced by outside companies verbatum is just plain unfair.
If you want to debate whether the reporter should have spent more time to talking about the side-effects of the drug, etc., that's a legitimate journalistic debate... but it has nothing to do with the video of the drug iteself used from the VNR.
And for the record, I'm not the news director or the reporter involved, just someone who knows a number of people at KPIX and hates to see folks get a bad rap wrongly.
A side note... Speaking of illegal, have the Free Press people heard about copyright laws? Copyright means you just can't take a clip of something that aired on TV and encode it and put it up on your own web site.... that's Illegal. In this digital world, more and more outlets are taking legal action against those who violate copyright laws by either swiping their text or video.
*some* video, just *some*. the lack of honest disclosure, a mere oversight (trust us). insignificant.. that's it. no big deal really.
and what exactly was the key part of the VNR that they used?
it was a highly favorable testimonial provided by Pfizer. yeah, that's some deep investigative reporting. viewers assume the station at least conducted their own interview, but the station was simply lazy and just pulled a PR testimonial for their broadcast and passed it off as if they had done it themselves.
what KPIX did is illegal and you claim it's "unfair" for anyone to object to this type of dishonest news story
as for freepress' use of the video, it's called "fair use" as it is used for educational purposes to show how VNRs have been used. so funny that your two responses are, "golly, they didn't mislead viewers *that* much," and "let's attack the messenger so that no one can ever see for themselves what KPIX did"
FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein agrees with freepress and is calling for a crackdown
while KPIX and you think it's no big deal, apparently a lot of other people who pay attention to media issues do. you're simply on the wrong side of this one, and until KPIX admits it's a problem and promises never to do it again, KPIS is too.
and what exactly was the key part of the VNR that they used?
it was a highly favorable testimonial provided by Pfizer. yeah, that's some deep investigative reporting. viewers assume the station at least conducted their own interview, but the station was simply lazy and just pulled a PR testimonial for their broadcast and passed it off as if they had done it themselves.
what KPIX did is illegal and you claim it's "unfair" for anyone to object to this type of dishonest news story
as for freepress' use of the video, it's called "fair use" as it is used for educational purposes to show how VNRs have been used. so funny that your two responses are, "golly, they didn't mislead viewers *that* much," and "let's attack the messenger so that no one can ever see for themselves what KPIX did"
FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein agrees with freepress and is calling for a crackdown
while KPIX and you think it's no big deal, apparently a lot of other people who pay attention to media issues do. you're simply on the wrong side of this one, and until KPIX admits it's a problem and promises never to do it again, KPIS is too.
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