I thought I was pretty cynical and jaded, but this surprised even me. It's certainly the first I've heard about this story, and became aware of it only through an email from one of the many internet freedom and public advocacy groups I belong to; Free Press (link at right).
Apparently, it is commonplace, at many, if not most, of the biggest stations in the country to pass off corporate sponsored videos (VNRs) as journalism. If you click on the link above you'll see a long list of stories that have actually been outed, but, it seems pretty obvious to me that this is a common and accepted practice at stations everywhere. It makes me wonder if there's any objective reporting left. Who can we trust to give us balanced information? Who can we turn to, as a society, to tell us what the corporations won't?
We have "news stories" promoting wonder drugs that are taken verbatim from footage provided by the very drug companies manufacturing the stuff we put into our bodies. Drugs are obviously the most disturbing examples, but this issue applies from everything to consumer products promoted by shills to electronics suggestions offered up by manufacturers.
These pieces are portrayed on traditional news shows in major markets, with reporters seeming to have researched and written the stories themselves, when they are actually using video footage lifted wholesale from the corporate suppliers trying to sell product. Here in the Bay Area, KPIX reporter Thuy Vu did a three minute piece singing the praises of the drug Exubera lifting half of it from a Pfizer video without any type of disclosure. In fact, the warnings about adverse effects that were contained in the original VNR due to legal requirements were actually omitted from the newscast. I mean, how pathetic is it that the ads are a better source of information than our news stories?
WCBS in New York, the CBS-owned station with the third largest market in the country, ran a story on chondroitin sulfate without mentioning that every shot, fact and soundbite was taken directly from a VNR from Leiner Health Products, which distributes the product. They put their own narrative and logos on the story to make it look like legitimate, objective reporting yet failed to mention that the New England Journal of Medicine story referred to in the piece actually said the drug was ineffective.
Free Press and the Center For Media and Democracy are holding a press event in Washington today to release a groundbreaking report of this activity, which is illegal. They caught 77 local stations, 80% of which were owned by major media conglomerates. It will be interesting to follow this story... into the ground, where it will surely be buried and never reported on (although the NY Times ran the story today). My guess is that this practice in endemic and unless Elliot Spitzer decides to get interested, my readers will be among the few who now must take a jaundiced eye to almost everything they see on TV because truly, there is no real independent voice in mainstream media today. Save for a few websites and organizations, almost every "fact" we see out there today probably emanated from some conglomerate selling something.
And, maybe that's fine for some dress or sofa we think is pretty, but what about the food and drugs we put into our bodies? We are more drugged out than ever but our overall health is worse than ever, almost every disease out there is becoming more prevalent, not less, so we need to take more drugs... hmmm... what a coincidence. The cost of healthcare has a huge impact on our society. Life expectancy is going down, not up. Half of all Americans are overweight, a third are obese. How long are people going to take this? How drugged and blind can we be? Maybe PT Barnum was right, you can't fool all the people all the time, but if you can fool 99%, and you can, you can make a lot of money doing so.
