Corporate Propaganda Still On the News 275
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."
Are these like Slashvertisments? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Evan
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Alternatively, I could turn this around and say that typically people who aren't pro-Palestine hate the place because it's "full of Arabs".
-OR-
It could also be because you disagree with how Israel handles conflict with Palestinians and has nothing to do with them being Jewish. Just a thought before you run off accusing people of being anti- whatever.
Re:Are these like Slashvertisments? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Let me be.. (Score:3, Funny)
Better than government news stories (Score:4, Insightful)
Either way, it's pretty sneaky and low.
Re:Better than government news stories (Score:5, Funny)
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!
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Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam; spam spam spam egg and spam; spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam spam; or Lobster Thermidor a Cr
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Don't you realize that they have our best interests at heart? Those kind leaders, in government and industry alike, seek naught but to guide us gently along the correct path.
Without such friendly guidance, would the plebes understand the importance of torture, the vital necessity of constant surveillance, and the horrible danger of jury trials? These ideas are all vital and beautiful aspects of enlightened rule, yet we see at every tu
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Re:Better than government news stories (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Re:Better than government news stories (Score:4, Insightful)
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Really? Who do you think has the greatest influence on the government? Some people are so fearful of the ghost of socialism that they can't see that their government has become little more than an an oligarchy controlled by the rich elite.
The fact that you get so much of your news from News Corporation should be a strong hint of just how impartial that news is.
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To put the whole topic of "corporate bias in the media" in a nutshell: "Beware of advice from the rich, for they do not seek company."
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Simon
Corporations == 21st Century Barons (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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And why do certain groups end up with the most money?
Because consciously or unconsciously, directly (by forking over cash) or indirectly (through public policy), people direct the flow of money towards them.
If one group has the most money, that's exactly because society deems them to be the most important.
Re:Corporations == 21st Century Barons (Score:4, Funny)
By that logic, we're clearly a society which places a great deal of importance on aircraft assembly [wikipedia.org].
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It happened some time ago. You've basically described the present situation. Take here for instance, as Royalty lost mosts of i
Corporations gaining power == fascism (Score:5, Insightful)
(oh and mods: please show your immaturiy to mod something down when you don't agree with it)
Re:Corporations gaining power == fascism (Score:4, Insightful)
"The media".... not corporations? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Sure you can. You just need to have a red herring to turn everyone's attention away while doing so. That, or you need to lie really well.
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I'm not sure if that's what you mean with the quotes around "free market economy", but the point here, what makes the current trend dangerously similar to fascism, is that the market is not actually that free.
Proponents of the free market theory, well at least those who actually mean "free" when they say "free market", recognize that it requires three very basic conditions:
1. Consumers must be rational, and able to make rational economic decisi
Re:Corporations gaining power == fascism (Score:4, Interesting)
I would say the media is an unwitting propaganda machine but a propaganda machine no less. It is a (mostly) free media so there is no reason that any individual cannot use the media for their own propaganda...assuming they can fund their own publicity/marketing department. So the media devolves more or less to be the mouthpiece of those with money (power) - government and coporations.
Those points of view that do not have the resources to outshout other points of view do not get represented.
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I wouldn't exactly call them unwitting. In particular, News Corporation is about as witting as it gets.
Corporate campaign contributions (Score:3, Interesting)
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Except that Joe Senator knows that Disney will be alive and willing to contribute the next year too, while Joe Average might not. Therefore, Disney makes a better master to serve.
Besides, Disney is old, powerful and famous. Serving it allows Joe Senator to warm himself with that glow. Joe Public can offer no more money, and no glamour w
But somehow they have millions to spend? (Score:2)
So, how many candidates get in that hot water with each election? If the motive is certainly there, but nobody is getting caught, then either your assumption (companies are motivated to buy political influence) is wrong, or the corruption happens but goes undetected.
IMHO all political advertising in all media should be forbidden, there should be no t
Our Corporate Overlords - www.theyrule.net (Score:2)
They Rule [theyrule.net]
Its a neat (flash based sadly) tool allowing you to identify which heads of various corporations are also heads of other corporations and see the web of power and influence they exert. I am sure these individuals don't think of themselves as the defacto government, but I think they are rapidly becoming it.
The core evil to my mind, the main mistake, was in allowing a corporation to have legal status as a type of individual - a "c
Please define 'we' (Score:3, Insightful)
Pardon me, but have you been drinking the nationalistic-flavoured Kool-aid? All people that fought in WW2 are retired or dead. The politicians that got you in that war are all dead. Do you think you somehow inherited some right over 'your' former allies?
Governments (Score:3, Interesting)
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They didn't have to bully anyone, the bought their way out.
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For example, I hear people complain about corporate welfare, farm subsidies, and protectionist tariffs as exampels of corporate influence. But government "aid to business", farm subsidies, and protectionism are popular!!!!
If it's corruption, it's corruption by eng
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Sure, a $5 million judgement might not mean much to a company the size of GE on the whole, but if your brand or d
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I know there are a lot of sincere libertarians on this site, and I sympathize with the libertarian idea (breifly, get the government off our backs). But this is what always gets me. If we just deregulate, it leaves a power vacuum, and we're left with these other entities governing us instead. Private, unelected oligarchs get to be in charge, and no one 'gets them off your back' if they decide that getting on your back is going be more profitable.
VNRs seem to be a symptom of this. There's no law, that
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Actually we are already there. Corporate power transcends national boundaries now for instance. When I was growing up I read a great deal of SciFi and it staggers me how much has come to pass.
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Hasn't this happened before ? Or does it make much of a difference that the corp has to go to the government first, present a business plan, and then the government takes away your property, crying "eminent domain", and hands it over to the corp ?
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In such a case, does the corporation in question deserve the lion's share of the blame? No, although they may be a villain. The blame lies with the government, the courts, and in ourselves.
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Not to disagree with but, while your penultimate paragraph is certainly true, it's equally true that if the government or any of its agencies were to decide to harass you for some reason you'd have even less chance of redress. I think focusing on large corporations misses the point that the rights of the individual are threatened by large, well funded organisations of any sort and,
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Well, when you consider the Chamber of Commerce gets 100K from every corporate donor...and that's on the low end...business has a lot of money to make sure enforcement is lax.
This isn't exactly new. When Clinton proposed universal health care it was HMO's and drug companies lining up to throw money at influencing public opinion against it.
Unless we come up with a way of creating a more intelligent and discerning general population...and I wouldn't hold my breath on that...anyone with a big enough budge
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I'm glad they did. Hillary's plan to destroy health care (which actually included jail terms for seeing your doctor without government approval) was definitely not in the public interest. Health care is just too important to have the government take it all over and trash it.
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It's also fairly hard to hold them liable for something. How do you imprison a corporation? What Sony did with the rootkit would have warranted a jail sentence in some countries. It has (almost) happened to juvenile "hackers" before [crime-research.org]. Inste
So is Google a good, or bad baron? (Score:2)
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Has anyone noticed that the state continues to accumulate and use their powers to restrict the freedom of the people? Has anyone noticed that corporations are made up of groups of people?
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Except back then it was "Dude, where's my horse?"
Sorry, couldn't resist.
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national debt anyone? (Score:2, Funny)
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Real Story...? (Score:5, Insightful)
what real news? .. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Don't laugh - I knew a guy who worked for one of the weekly tabloids (hint - they encouraged people to subscribe by giving away 50-cent lottery tickets way back when), and they had t
Re:what real news? .. (Score:5, Informative)
Recycling: Not Just for Evil Corporations (Score:3, Interesting)
It's nice to see that somebody else finally noticed. Glenn Reynolds was writing about this problem back in 2002:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,42050,00.html [foxnews.com]
Recycling is supposed to be a good thing, so you'd think that media organizations would be proud when they do it. But in fact, they tend to keep it quiet.
I'm not talking about aluminum cans here, but about the tendency of media organizations to turn press releases and written-to-order opinion pieces into apparently objective accounts. This happens all the time, partly because of media laziness, and partly because of ingenuity on the part of the various advocacy groups that depend on media coverage to advance their agendas and promote their fundraising campaigns.
The first part of this formula, media laziness, was demonstrated by journalism students here at the University of Tennessee a few years ago. They produced a fake press release for a non-existent student group opposed to political correctness and sent it to various news organizations. Some ran the item; some even embellished the report of an event that never happened with additional details that weren't in the phony press release. None called the contact number (which was genuine) or did anything else to check its validity. Yet when they were exposed, their response was to call the experiment "unethical."
http://instapundit.com/archives/021755.php [instapundit.com]
News stories, to a degree seldom appreciated by the general public, are often the product of press releases generated by trade associations and interest groups. Often those releases are converted into news stories by the simple expedient of placing a reporter's byline on top. Television news stories (especially those appearing on local stations) are often supplied fully produced, with blank spots left for the local news reporter to insert commentary that makes the story appear his or her own. Opinion columns are often "placed" by businesses or interest groups to support a particular point of view -- often, they are even written by those groups and then run with the byline of distinguished individuals, or even regular commentators, who have barely read the piece, much less written it. Indeed, the Sasso "attack video" was something of this sort, for the journalists who broke the Biden/Kinnock story did not at first disclose their source.
Most readers and viewers have small appreciation of how little of what they see on television or read in newspapers and magazines is original with the reporters, editors, and producers involved. Yet in fact news organizations are highly dependent on predigested information from public relations firms, government officials, and advocacy groups, information that is often passed on to their readers and viewers with no indication that it is not original. That problem is not new, but it has gotten worse in recent years. . . .
Although a "video news release" is still more expensive to produce than a standard paper press release, they have become much more common. According to a recent poll, seventy-five percent of TV news directors reported using video news releases at least once per day.
Television......what a waste. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Television......what a waste. (Score:5, Funny)
Cheers,
Someone-holier-than-thou
Re:Television......what a waste. (Score:4, Funny)
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Area man? Is that you?
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28694 [theonion.com]?
Corporate Propaganda Still On the News (Score:4, Interesting)
Want something to really worry about in terms of broadcast hyjinks? MTV is using the tried and true subliminal 'power of suggestion' in various spots in their broadcasts in Asia. I happened to be capturing TV via a DVR one evening, and when I played back my sample via the jog wheel, I was able to clearly see a text message inside a faint white rectangular box, overlaid into a short commercial for an upcoming show. It came and went quickly...'progress is now - Fridays on MTV'...not long enough to spot unless you were paying close attention at that moment, but long enough to be captured by the brain for subliminal decoding...ouch. MTVs' idea or broadcast on the behest of some agency, perhaps?
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Propaganda in its own right... FUDD (Score:2)
This isn't any different then what happens every day in newspapers when reporters lift quotes from company press releases. If the reporter is worth a shit, they will add their own sources to it, but not their own spin. In some cases, this might be the only way to access a national level source who is difficult to reach, let alone film, especially with limit t
They teach it in schools... (Score:2)
One of the classes I did this for was a sophmore or junior level public relations class. The technique of handing the news something that looks like a news video, but is really just a corporate press release, was explicitly covered in this class. Not only was it covered, but it was encouraged as a legitima
Care less (Score:2)
This is something that happens in print too with advertorials. Recently in PC Game
Way to go, Captain Obvious! (Score:2)
Hot on the heels of telling us these things are shown by "News Corp., Tribune, and Disney," Captain Obvious wants us to know that they're paid for by "the country's biggest corporations." Whoa. No kidding, Sherlock. What next? Water Wet, film at 11:00?
The only people with money to produce this crap are big corporations. It's pretty unlikely that Joe's Pizza is going to be able to pay for an advertisement disguised as a hard-hitting news story on the benefits
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You're supposed to agree that it's bad that corporations get to portray their point of view as news, BTW. At the same time, you're supposed to agree that it's good for left-wing activists to portray their point of view as news. If you don't, you're evil or ignorant (because you don't read t
Don't buy this... (Score:2)
News for ratings, not for information (Score:2)
I watch FOX on occasion for pure enjoyment in exercise. I can talk about all the things flashing
Sheesh. The Pentagon uses this method all the time (Score:3, Informative)
-FL
Subject (Score:2)
In any given 30-minute "news" timeslot I get maybe 5 seconds' worth of actual news between the weather, sports, and paid advertising that should be run during the scheduled commercial breaks. That 5 seconds consists of information I hadn't already found on the internet 2 days previously, and is more often than not celebrity gossip. "Oh, Brittney Spears got divorc
What did you expect? (Score:2)
news flash: the media lies (Score:2)
Local stations can play all the propoganda they way and call it "news." That's their right. The evil creeps in when governments begin to _force_ stations to play propoganda as news.
Law Firms Do It Also (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:2)
"Democracy Now" is really Democracy? No! (Score:2)
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Good grief, you're stupid! Chavez was elected by about 80% of Venezualans, which is far, far more than the current US "president". Disagreeing with the US does not make one a "fascist dictator". And, as others have pointed out, opposition to the Israeli governments Middle East policy is not anti-Semitic. And, just so you might hopefully get the point, disagreeing with "President" Bush does
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No, but being a fascist dictator [dictatorofthemonth.com] does the trick for Chavez. Disagreement with the US (he even said he wanted to "bury" the United States!) does not make one a dictator, however. I never claimed it did. Chavez was elected with 80% so he is not a dictator? Saddam Hussein was always elected with 100%, so that made him even more democratic using your defend-the-dictator logic. "Good grief, you are stupid"
The hatred of Israel (which is mostly
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As for the antisemitism bullshit part
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Here [dictatorofthemonth.com] is one good place. Democracy is rather shaky in Venezuela now that there are laws in place demanding jail terms for those who vocalize criticism if the dictator. "Evil socialist"? The terms are kind of redundant. However, all Carter did was verify that the vote counting was fair. This does not stop Chavez from rigging the elections in other ways to further fascism and thwart democr
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Of course you don't care, since it makes your assertion completely ridiculous. If you'd care, you would'nt make it.
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No, it doesn't. There are plenty of Jewish people who are willing to shrug off or even support antisemitism, just as "hate my own race" racists are found in other ethnic groups. This does not change my assertion at all. I really don't care what their ethnic group is: I just care about the hatred they support.
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Lebanon invaded Israel and kidnapped two Israelis. This started that war that happened earlier this year. Israel struck back. How were you not aware of this?
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From my reading of the site, it is strongly American. IOW, why do you care what happens on some not-so-distant island?
Cuba has one of the top health systems in the world. They have low crime level. Well, they do not have democracy. But, you know, many people would exchange the populism of democracy to sane and stable dictatorship.
One of the top promises of democracy (and advantage over monarchy/feudalism) is that government is rotated, thus minimizing probability of crazy reaching (and holding for to
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Does this include the fact that they treat being infected with HIV as criminal justice matter (go to prison)? Their system is also not "one of the top", being mere 40 out of 190. That's the upper 1/4, but not tops. You have to wonder about it being ranked that high. It is ahead of New Zealand.... however, can you find one person who would rather go to a Cuban hospital than go to one in New Zealand? There's also the matter of how the Cuban government,
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They have a real bad record of this, actually. They intervened in Nicaragua and caused a war there during the 1980s that killed tens of thousands. Similar in El Salvador. Angola in Africa fought to free itself from a European colonial power: Cuba intervened against Angola. Currently, they are backing fascist movements in Colombia and Venezuela.
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How do we know this?
Define 'many.' One thing you will notice is that very, very few people get in boats and land on Cuban shores. (Well, willingly - there's Gitmo.)
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There are apparently some Channels and Stations which improve their profit margin by not buying newswire content and not doing original field reporting. They replace it by canned, pre-payed content which shows on their balance sheet as profit instead of the loss incurred by those pesky field crews (which you have to employ as well).
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He knows about hurricanes.
The first rule of hurricanes is "Don't live in a hurricane zone!"
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