Update on propaganda and advertising

by John Q on April 7, 2006

A year or so ago, I was surprised to find out that a fair bit of the news on US TV is actually advertising produced by corporations and fed into news broadcasts with spurious “reporters”. The NYT has an update, with a report by the Center for Media and Democracy on the extent of the practice.

{ 11 comments }

1

Don Quijote 04.07.06 at 6:48 am

Every tihng on TV is produced by corporations, and all of it is propaganda.

2

abb1 04.07.06 at 7:01 am

Right. In fact, according to Richard Dawkins, any communication is an attempt at manipulation. But there are various degrees of audacity.

3

Simstim 04.07.06 at 7:25 am

Yeah, I suppose it is called the British Broadcasting Corporation.

4

jim 04.07.06 at 7:47 am

I don’t see why this is surprising (except that everyone had apparently denied it). Many newspapers routinely print barely modified press releases; why should TV stations be different?

5

rollo 04.07.06 at 1:37 pm

It’s disconcerting more than surprising, because of the perceived nature of the television and its news; as opposed to its tacit nature – the actual effect on us and our world, not the stated goals or documented purpose.
What it is as opposed to what it says it is.
What it is is a prosthetic community – it’s taken the place of what was once the contextual landscape for most people’s lives. That should bring a responsibility directly commensurate with its effect, but the deniability of its vaguely stated purpose – news outlet, entertainment locus, closer to newspapers etc – means it doesn’t have to.
So we live in a prosthetic community that we don’t influence morally that influences us tremendously.
Thus anorexic teenagers, thus Bush in the White House.
Thus castles and fortresses of financial dukedoms that write their own moral guidelines into law, and deploy their armies all around our world.

6

John Quiggin 04.07.06 at 3:10 pm

Jim, I discussed the press release analogy in the earlier post. It’s not quite accurate – this is more like the kind of cash for comment that cost Bandow and Fumento their jobs, arguably worse since it’s presented as news.

7

saurabh 04.07.06 at 3:39 pm

I find this quote quite rich:

In an interview on Wednesday, Ms. Cochran said new regulations were an unnecessary and potentially dangerous government intrusion into television journalism. “Where does it stop?” she asked, adding, “It is up to the individual stations to look at their practices and tighten up.”

Considering that the government itself is a significant source of these video news releases, it seems a bit precious to lament government intrusion after you’ve already made yourself a shameless toady. I dunno if Ms. Cochran was referring to only corporate-produced segments, but still…

8

Sven 04.07.06 at 10:30 pm

Many newspapers routinely print barely modified press releases

It’s much more insidious than that. It’s all about the pitch, not the paper.

9

PoliticalCritic 04.08.06 at 4:16 pm

This is another example of state-run television broadcasting. I used to think this was a democracy, but we’re even getting the news spoon fed to us.

10

maidhc 04.09.06 at 2:51 am

KRON-TV in San Francisco just put on a week’s worth of “news” paid for by Tourism Australia. Details here.

Not that I have any objection to having a holiday in Australia. But I wouldn’t call it news.

11

David Garcia 04.09.06 at 4:04 pm

If anyone is truly surprised by the fact that news broadcasts are loaded with advertising, they’ve been in the ivory tower and out of the real world too long. No offense intended toward anyone, but term limits for the ivory tower might not be a bad idea.

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