CORPORATE SPONSORED NEWS?

The 'news' that media outlets presents to us is often just the marketing information, advertising, supplied to them by corporations.

An article from the 1990s that rings even more true today than back then:

"Groups like Medialink beam these video news releases, or VNRs, via satellite to television news editors. These editors, lured by the polished product available at no cost, run these press releases as news, much like the print media do with the VNRs written counterparts.

The result?

Corporate-sponsored ad agencies are subtly changing and controlling the news we see on the tube.

picture of person being programmed with the official news

Their use is widespread. For example, 81.2 million people saw a "news" report on dolphin-safe tuna fishing methods on t.v. last year. Reporters did not dig up this story. It was fed to them by Starkist Seafood Co., who hired Chicago-based Edelman Public Relations Worldwide to produce it. Ad executives sailed on fishing boats to promote Starkist's product. News directors, undoubtedly impressed by the artfully shot and edited scenes of playful dolphins, fierce seas, and rugged yet environmentally sensitive boathands, ate it up. The question: Is dolphin-safe tuna newsworthy without easily available PR material about it? If so, why not assign reporters to the story instead of relying on the advertising people? If not, why run it on the news at all? The answer, of course, is money. Assigning reporters and camera crews to an all-day or even all-week fishing expedition is an expense that most news stations cannot afford, or at least wish to avoid. But Starkist can afford it. In fact, faced with a nationwide boycott of their tuna, StarKist can't afford not to.

Edelman also produced a VNR for the Nutrasweet Company about fat substitutes which was run as "news" and seen by 54.1 million people. No doubt this VNR featured scientists talking about health hazards, maybe even an animated segment showing fat cells clogging up arteries and killing folks. Then an interview with a Nutrasweet technician reporting objectively on alternatives to fatty foods.

Other examples: 21.8 million people watched Soviets line up at the new Moscow McDonald's to enjoy a hamburger. McDonald's Corporation paid Patterson-Parkington First International of Toronto to create the news. Here we have Americans watching a Canadian-made film of Russians eating Central American Beef. First International, indeed.

And 18.6 million people learned about the "International Rotten Sneaker Contest" from their trusty news anchors. Odor-Eaters paid Combe Inc. of White Plains, New York to create that "news".

All of these examples are amusing in a disgusting sort of way.

But some video news releases are deadly.

For instance, 61.4 million people saw a VNR on Iraq's (1990) invasion of Kuwait. 35.3 milllion saw a later YNR depicting human rights abuses perpetrated by the Iraqis against the Kuwaitis. Reporters were not involved in these two particular news accounts. Hill and Knowlton of Washington, DC crated this news, commissioned by a group called Citizens for a Free Kuwait. This group, rumored to be working with five million petrodollars belonging to the Emir (of Kuwait) himself, also hired a PR firm to mass produce "Free Kuwait" T-Shirts, flags, bumper stickers, and assorted Desert Shield/Storm souvenirs. The group's task was to put a positive spin on the Emir's repressive regime so that Americans could feel good about killing and dying to restore Kuwait's legitimate dictator.

Perhaps the only bigger distributor of video "news" releases than Medialink is the Pentagon. What name other than VNR could you call the footage of smart bombs dropping through Iraqi chimneys? The networks salivated over that video clip, and hundreds of others like it, supplied by the military, designed to put a positive spin on what the United Nations now calls "near apocalyptic" allied bombing which has taken Iraq back to a pre-industrial age..."

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The above article was taken from NEXUS Magazine. It was originally taken by Nexus from an article entitled 'Advertising Invades the Newsroom' by Carl Hammarskjold which appeared in a November 1991 issue of the "Anderson Valley Advertiser", (Booneville, CA, USA).