I’d love to see something happen along these lines. We’ve had a number of discussions at the Center for Media and Democracy about how we might facilitate this sort of thing, but we haven’t quite figured out how to organize it.

There are two discrete things that need to be accomplished:

(1) Tracking VNRs that are sent out by PR firms, and documenting examples of when and how they are used. This ought to be easy, but it isn’t, in large part because the PR firms and TV stations have set things up so it ISN’T easy. Some VNRs are distributed via NetNewswire, as Linkmeister pointed out, but most are not. We have an article about VNRs on SourceWatch that lists some of the major producers and distributors. However, most VNRs are sent to TV stations via satellite or other high-speed digital transmission, often using proprietary technologies such as Pathfire, which are not accessible by the general public. In effect, PR firms and TV broadcasters have have created their own ultrabroadband network, almost like the internet except that the public never gets to see it. They’re able to track what they send back and forth, and PR firms use the data to provide detailed reports for their clients detailing when and where VNRs are broadcast, but that information is also proprietary and does not get shared with the public.

(2) Advocacy, such as letter-writing campaigns, as well as monitoring of news content at the local level to put pressure on stations to behave in a more transparent and ethical fashion. This part of the puzzle would probably be easier to organize, but to do it effectively, we need to come up with a better way of doing part (1) above. It took us 10 months and about $75,000 to produce the Fake News Report that Diane Farsetta and Dan Price wrote, and of course they only caught and tracked a small fraction of the VNR universe. If someone has ideas for an effective way of continuing this work going forward, we’d love to hear them.

The thing that really pisses me off about this whole issue is that John Stauber and I first wrote about VNRs more than a decade ago, in our book, Toxic Sludge Is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry. Since then, we have talked about VNRs on numerous occasions when we have been interviewed for newspapers or radio. On more than one occasion I’ve done call-in radio interviews in which TV news producers have actually phoned in and hammered me, claiming that “no TV stations ever use that stuff,” and acting as though I’m nuts to suggest that it ever happens. The comment from Barbara Cochran about VNRs being like the “Loch Ness monster” speaks for itself. We knew VNRs were being used, because PR people discuss them fairly candidly in the PR trade press or at PR industry workshops that we have attended, but when we’ve talked about it publicly, TV news people would act as though we were cranks or conspiracy theorists.

Now, thanks to Diane and Dan, we’ve got actual video that shows how commonly and flagrantly VNRs are passed off as real news. What this proves is that American TV news producers and people like Barbara Cochran have been lying through their teeth, and they’ve been lying for more than a decade. If they’re this dishonest about what goes on inside their own newsrooms, how can anyone expect them to do an honest job of reporting what goes on in the rest of the world?

Media Matters should also look at all celebrity interviews. Almost always when they’re on a talk show (and not selling a book, movie or tv show) and they bring up some condition from which either they or a family member have successfully recovered, they’re under some sort of contract with a drug company.

From my perspective one of the most important thing we can do is buy Dixie Chicks & Neil Young CDS, tickets to Inconvenient Truth & Michael Moore movies, and books by authors writing about what we think is important.

Management in my business cares most about ratings, ticket sales, book sales etc.. Political pressure is secondary.

Senator Kerry is not refering to filibustering at the ned of his post. He’s refering to taking back control of the Senate. There’s nothing disingenious about that. You don’t want Dems to have control of the Senate. There was not enough Dems to stage a filibuster. Otherwise I think he would have.

Naturally.

http://www.prwatch.org/fakenews/vnr18

Here is a link about NPR’s Amelia Shaw:

http://www.haitiaction.net/New….._17_6.html

This almost got me into trouble once, waiting in an airport lounge for a flight back to N.O. I joined in a conversation which included an attractive woman whom a few other people seemed to recognize, but I had no idea who she was. Of course, she works for one of the N.O. TV stations, and I said some unflattering things about certain people for whom I sort of work (commissioners of some kind) … fortunately, she held similarly low opinions of these people, and advised me not to voice them quite so loudly … I only found out who she was after I got home and asked my wife who it might have been (she’s lived here longer than I have).

sofistic @ 43, OMG!!!