Nightly News: a guide to the hottest shows, products, and companies.
By Arthur
April 22nd, 2008 | corporate america, news |
ABC’s Dancing with the Stars is one of those shows that I skip by when trying to find something to watch. It is a quality production, but I try to find programing that gives me a little more value (self-reflection, insight, social commentary) in the limited time that I have to watch. I do admit that I have my occasional indulgences, Wife Swap or Brothers & Sisters. Rarely, however, do these indulgences spill over into my local evening news. It seems that, at least for Disney owned ABC 7 Los Angeles, Dancing with the Stars deserves the most thorough local news coverage the station’s producers can offer. This nightly segment rivals the authority of “AMS certified” Dallas Rains and the Live Mega doppler 7000 HD Plus. It even overshadows the sports report.
Local news has a responsibility to report relevant local stories and national news with a local perspective. If I wanted to know that the judge in Dancing with the Stars labeled two dancers as a “strumpet and a gigolo”, I would have watched the show. ABC 7 Los Angeles chooses to push corporate interests by masquerading ABC network show promotions as news stories. This is not just a local problem. In February, Good Morning America promoted a story about distractions in cars that cause severe accidents for teens. The teaser included footage from inside the cars during these violent collisions. I tuned in. About thirty seconds into the report, the company that sells the special cameras mounted in the cars was featured with representatives promoting the product. This was not a story about protecting new drivers from distraction; it was a commercial veiled as a news cast.
This start of this infusion of commercialism and entertainment dates back to 1985 when the FCC abolished “guidelines for minimal amounts of non-entertainment programming” and dropped “FCC license guidelines for how much advertising could be carried.”1 The relaxation of these restrictions has influenced the increase in Dancing with the Stars type reports and prepackaged product promotions masked as news.
In 2007, the FCC began addressing the latter issue, the misuse of video news releases (VNR). On September 26, 2007, Comcast’s news channel CN8 was fined by the FCC for “having aired multiple video news releases without disclosure.”2 In the past, broadcasters have argued that “disclosure is only required when stations are paid to air VNRs, or when VNRs deal with controversial or political issues,” but the FCC has begun classifying VNRs themselves as “valuable consideration”.2 Because news stations do not have to produce the content, they save on their production budget. As the director of George Washington University’s Journalism program classifies them, VNRs are essentially “in-kind contributions.”3 The Center for Media and Democracy produced a report of 111 television stations that have used VNRs without disclosing the source. You’ll find ABC 7 Los Angeles on the list.
What are the motivations behind these misrepresentations? One can only infer that in these situations corporate revenue interests win over relevant news broadcast. Are the national and local news companies so severely understaffed that they cannot research, write, and produce enough news to fill 40 minutes? Or do these companies find the cost savings and ease of inserting in a pre cut corporate produced piece more attractive? We shouldn’t, and we should no longer accept news blurred wth commercials. I will make a commitment to write my local news station every time it airs a VNR without attribution. A simple email from us reminding them of their responsibility and misuse of the medium will help keep the honest broadcasters honest and will help bring the corporate repeat violators to the forefront.
Let’s not dance around the issue:
2 Farsetta, D. (2007, October). “Four More Fines for Fake News: FCC Says VNRs Are “Valuable Consideration.” Center for Media and Democracy. Retrieved from PRWatch.org on 22 Apr. 2008.
3 Farsetta, D. (2005, June). “Video News Releases: The Ball’s in the FCC’s Court.” Center for Media and Democracy. Retrieved from PRWatch.org on 22 Apr. 2008.
One Response to “Nightly News: a guide to the hottest shows, products, and companies.”
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April 24th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
I disagree. I *totally* needed the 11 o’clock ABC 7 News team to recap the episode of LOST that I just saw moments before the newscast. /sarcasm
In Los Angeles, celebrity and entertainment news often is local news. Celebrities drive drunk on our streets. Our police department gets to escort Britney’s kids away from her house a few blocks away. Alas, I don’t get any local news unless it’s celebrity related…