DO YOU KNOW what a video news release is?Most people don't. But you should.
Some companies package video to look like news packages and then release them through publicity agents to broadcast news outlets. And then some news stations run these giant advertisements (known as VNRs), sometimes without telling their viewers.
Philly based CN8, the Comcast network, was fined by the FCC for running several VNRs last year, including one about the great product, Wheaties.
Temple prof Fran Viola spoke to the Daily News about the fine: Francesca Viola, a Temple journalism professor and former TV reporter who's worked at both WTXF (Channel 29) and WPHL (Channel 17), couldn't comment on Zappala's use of the material, not having seen it, but said it was "fairly common to use a small portion" of video news releases, "perhaps a couple of shots of what they call B-roll," on the air, and less commonly, "a sound bite with attribution, but never, ever, a substantial portion in one report."
What's the big deal? The news needs stories, right? They don't have the staff to crank out the hours of airtime every day, right? It isn't like they are deceiving the public in any way, right? The only real crime is that they are being lazy, right?
Or is the practice of using VNR's all that serious?
4 comments:
I think it is a disgrace that a news company would run ads like news, especially whitout informing the viewer of the change. This quickly makes the commercial seem like fact, instead of being the biased opinion the company is trying to promote. By running these VNRs, the station is endorsing and promoting a skewed opinion as fact.
Instead of running the VNRs, a news station should use that time to inform us about real news. Even if they don't have enough stories to fill an entire day, they can rerun a story from that days airing. Many people only watch one newcast per day, so the repetition of an important story would help to inform more citizens.
Until the advent of Cable TV, the networks (3 primarily) only had to fill about 1-1/2 hours/day with blather, and that included even the Today Show with its entertainment skewed magazine format! Now with multiple channels running 24 hours 'news' there is a lot of white air to fill. Even most items on the news that are not VNRs are so fluffy they resemble flypaper! The sum total of hard news, sadly, is still about 1-1/2 hours per day... the rest is repetitive filler. The line between news and entertainment has only been blurred more with the advent of obviously skewed Fox News, etc. PITY the poor SOB that only gets information from electronic media! Sad to see the paper news go literally 'down the tube'!
It definitely seems lazy to rely on VNRs for stories because there is no objectivity to that piece at all. It could possible become off putting to the viewers who unknowingly are being given supposed facts that are actually written by PR executives (or whomever). I find it a lot more professional and informative when an anchor or reporter on TV tells the viewing audience who actually funded particular researches.
During my "What is News?" assignment I came across a 2-4 minute segment about this face lotion made from volcanic lava (and fused with lots of chemicals.) It came on after the stream of local news and before the first weather segment. They had a whole string of positive experiences and comments and I'm pretty sure I remember hearing "Beyonce likes it!" I was pretty surprised to see this on the news. Isn't it kind of the same thing as the Wheaties video?
- Caitlyn Conefry
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