Corporate Propaganda Still On the News

mofomojo writes, "Democracy Now! reports that a new study by the Center for Media and Democracy says Americans are still being shown corporate public relations videos disguised as news reports on newscasts across the country. In April, the Center identified 77 stations using Video News Releases in their newscasts; the findings led to an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission. A followup study has found that 10 of those stations are still airing VNRs today, for a new total of 46 stations in 22 states." From the article: "Most of the VNRs have aired on stations owned by large media conglomerates such as News Corp., Tribune, and Disney. They've also been sponsored by some of the country's biggest corporations including General Motors, GlaxoSmithKline, and Allstate Insurance."

Comments

Are these like Slashvertisments?

[Timesprout]

Adverts disguised as stories?

Re:Are these like Slashvertisments?

[Gregory Cox]

Yes, but these are worse.

Slashdot editors don't check the affiliations of people who submit stories, and allow anonymous submissions, so Slashvertisements are possible. However, I don't think anyone expects anything different. The submitters are named, or the story starts "An anonymous reader writes...", and readers are left to draw their own conclusions about any potential bias.

On the other hand, news channels don't take submissions from just anyone when they make news stories. They're supposed to be deciding what to air themselves, with the aim of informing their viewers. If they use a corporate PR video that looks like a news report, they ought to know the source; the problem is when they deliberately fail to declare who made it, as this means that they are disguising advertisements as news.

Corporations == 21st Century Barons

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Has anyone else noticed that at every turn corporations again and again attempt to subvert the powers of the state and twist both public opinion and the law to their own benefit. In many cases, large corporations behave like small, independant countries or baronies, accountable to no one but themselves and largely immune from reprecussion. Only the state can realistically challenge their authority, and even then only with considerable effort and expense.

The situation in many ways resembles the old medieval baronies, who quarralled and feuded amoung themselves, and methaphoricall and literally stamped on the faces of the general population. The state/king had only limited ability to exercise control and essentially each barony was a virtual state within a state. In many cases, different parts of a country could be at war with one another, or with the monarchy.

In case anyone thinks this is a bit far fetched, consider this. What if MegaCorp(TM), drove up to your house one day and towed away your car on some flimsy legal pretense? Barons and Lords did this kind of thing all the time. What can you do? It's getting to the point that the police will not even dare to investigate large corporations with their armies of lawyers. Your ability to conclude a successful suit before you grow old and die is also ever decreasing.

You get a lot of SciFi where in the furture, corporations rule everything. Is this really so far fetched? If they have more de facto power and influence than the nation states in which they reside, then what is to stop them, like the old barons before them, from simply all but forming states of their own? Maybe Richelieu's reforms will be rolled back, just in a different form.

Re:Corporations == 21st Century Barons

[Anonymous Coward]

You can tell what a society deems the most important based on the size of the buildings erected for it. For much of the Middle Ages, churches would be the largest buildings, with giant cathedrals constructed as demonstrations of the church's power.

At some point following the Renaissance, government buildings became the largest buildings. No longer would the town church be the largest building, but instead the local government building would be the largest. The state had become the largest power.

Who do the largest buildings we erect today represent? The most powerful and important entities create the largest buildings. When you see a city skyline, what makes up most of the largest buildings?

Can you even see city hall in most modern city skylines?

Re:Corporations == 21st Century Barons

[hugzz]

Um maybe it isn't what society deems to be the most important, but what has the most money. I wouldn't be surprised if religion used to have the most money, and then government had the most money, and now business has the most money. It takes money to build big buildings!

Real Story...?

[LlamaDragon]

Why not link to the the real article instead of, or in addition to, the story about the article?

what real news? ..

[rs232]

There isn't any real news. Don't you realize it yet. Stories are generated and fed to the media by the PR departments of the various interests. How it works is a bunch of 'journalists' sit in a room and generate feel good stories about the establishment and negative ones about whoever we happened to be currently at war with. You see it doesn't really matter if what is reported happened, all is required is the 'facts' be spun in favour of the winners. Like when Bush recently legalised the torture of prisoners, NBC reported this as Bush banning torture.

Re:what real news? ..

[XorNand]

For anyone who hasn't yet read it, I highly recommend that you read Paul Graham's blog post entitled "The Submarine". It's a very interesting insight into how PR firms craft the fake news that you describe.

Re:Better than government news stories

[Anonymous Coward]

As sneaky as this is though, I'd much rather watch corporate ads disguised as news than government propaganda disguised as news

What have you got, then?

Well there's news, propaganda and news, news news ads and propaganda, propaganda news ads and propaganda, news news ads ads and propaganda, and propaganda news and ads...

Have you got anything without propaganda in it?

Well, there's news news ads and propaganda. That's not got much propaganda in it.

I don't want any propaganda!

Corporations gaining power == fascism

[nietsch]

Most usians may not be familiar with it, but fascism at it's core is the joining of political and corporate powers. Both Italy and Germany in the 30s had huge corporate blocks that had a lot of political power. That may give you some pause next time you see all the 'campaign donations' that flow one way. What do you think flows the other way?

(oh and mods: please show your immaturiy to mod something down when you don't agree with it)

Re:Television......what a waste.

[MikeXpop]

Pssh, you still use a computer? I threw my computer out in 1999 and haven't looked back. I have a library filled with great books, and I can borrow the others from the local library for FREE. The internet is such DREK. Makes kids stupid, and adults stupider. Resist your telecom overlords!!

Cheers,
Someone-holier-than-thou

Re:Better than government news stories

[real gumby]

...usually it's pretty obvious that the story came from a company...

The problem is: how do you know?
 
Perhaps you only notice the poorly-done ones. After all, it's common to have radio DJs do spots for local businesses, which also is clearly an ad. But it's also common for DJs to work product mentions into the morning banter. The same applies to TV: how can you tell if that news segment on the local Coke plant was just a random filler or an ad placement by the bottler? What's the difference?

"The media".... not corporations?

[Opportunist]

The media, at least mass media, are by their very definition and size required to be corporations by themselves. The difference to "normal" corporations is that the goods they sell are information.

Or opinion.

In a democracy, you cannot rule against the people. Or so you're told in school. Actually, you cannot rule against the public opinion. If that opinion is based on information and facts, and people finding their own opinions, this is actually a good thing.

That's not the reality today, though.

Public opinion is made and shaped by the media. You're told what you're supposed to hear, you're shown what you're supposed to see and more often than not, you're also told what you're supposed to think and believe because "that's the public opinion". To support it you often get to see some statistics that make the statistician in me cringe, because you can see easily how crooked they are sometimes.

And hey, if "the people" believe that, how can it be wrong? 10000 say yes, you say no, now who's more likely wrong? You? Or 10000 others?

There's a carefully crafted and delicate balance of power (and money) between government, corporations and media (corporations). You, the voter, don't matter anymore. You're being shifted around and moved, statistically dissected and examined to see what spin would make you vote this or the other way.