Still Not The News: Second CMD Investigation Reveals TV Stations Overwhelmingly Fail to Disclose VNRs

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by Diane Farsetta and Daniel Price

Television news audiences are still routinely deceived by false TV news, according to our second report this year on video news releases (VNRs).

In a Washington, D.C. press conference on November 14, 2006, CMD senior researcher Diane Farsetta and research consultant Daniel Price announced that 46 television stations in 22 states have aired corporate-sponsored VNRs dressed up as news during the past six months. These incidents were documented by tracking a mere one to two percent of the total number of VNRs offered to newsrooms during the investigation.

The new report adds momentum to CMD's groundbreaking April 2006 investigation, which led the Federal Communications Commission to investigate practices at some 77 news outlets nationwide.

CMD's findings demonstrate that station and industry codes of conduct -- and even an ongoing investigation by the Federal Communications Commission -- are not sufficient to ensure the public's right to know who seeks to persuade them via television news, the most widely used information source in the United States.

Among the findings of CMD's new report:

• WTOK-11 in Meridian, MS aired without disclosure a VNR titled, "Global Warming: Hot Air?" The segment ridiculed claims that increased hurricane activity could be related to global warming. The VNR was funded by TCS Daily, a website then published by the PR and lobbying firm DCI Group, which counts among its clients the oil giant ExxonMobil.

• In 12 instances, television stations actively denied disclosure to their news audiences by editing out on-screen and verbal client notifications included in the original VNRs. (The built-in notifications are a new practice at the broadcast PR firm D S Simon Productions.) WMGM-40 in Philadelphia aired a D S Simon VNR after making just one edit -- to remove the on-screen disclosure. A WMGM-40 reporter re-voiced the VNR, following the original script nearly verbatim, but omitting the verbal disclosure at the end of the script.

• In four instances, television stations not only aired VNRs without disclosure, but showed PR publicists on screen, as though they were reporters. KHON-2 (Honolulu, HI) and KFMB-8 (San Diego, CA) showed publicist Mike Morris "reporting" on Halloween traditions, while KVCT-19 (Victoria, TX) and KSFY-13 (Sioux Falls, SD) showed publicist Kate Brookes "reporting" on medical advancements.

• Ten television stations named in this study were also cited in the April 2006 "Fake TV News" report for undisclosed VNR broadcasts, including such major market stations as New York City's NY1 and WPIX-11, WDAF-4 in Kansas City, MO, and WSYX-6 in Columbus, OH. Only two of the 10 stations previously cited -- Philadelphia's KYW-3 and Cincinnati's WCPO-9 -- provided clear disclosure of their more recent VNR broadcasts.

Forty-eight of 54 VNR broadcasts (or 89 percent of the total) contained no disclosure whatsoever of the nature or source of the sponsored video. In the six other cases, disclosure was often fleeting and ambiguous.

In April 2006, CMD issued its first VNR report, "Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed." In it, we documented 98 instances when televisions stations broadcast fake news produced by public relations firms in the form of VNRs or related satellite media tours (SMTs).

Public relations firms responded by creating their own front group, the National Association of Broadcast Communicators, to campaign against disclosure requirements. Representing broadcasters, the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) also weighed in against the FCC investigation, claiming that the mere investigation -- even prior to FCC issuing any ruling or judgment -- is already having a "chilling" effect on free speech.

The free speech objections raised by industry groups are specious. CMD has never opposed the use of VNRs. Moreover, our continuing research into the use of VNRs by television stations shows that they have continued to use them, even after our April report exposed and documented the extent of the practice and the FCC launched its investigation.

Video that Looks Just Like News

VNRs are segments designed to look like television news stories, but are funded by and scripted for corporate or government clients. Undisclosed use of this material is certainly a violation of journalistic ethics, as even the RTNDA admits in its own code of ethics (although it does nothing to enforce this guideline).

Undisclosed VNRs also represent a breach of the FCC's sponsorship identification rules. It is also, we believe, illegal under the terms of FCC licensing for television stations to broadcast VNRs without disclosure to news audiences.

According to the FCC's April 2005 Public Notice, TV stations airing VNRs "must clearly disclose to members of their audiences the nature, source and sponsorship of the material."

Previous public scrutiny of VNRs has not resulted in meaningful change. After the release of CMD's 2006 report, therefore, we continued to research VNR usage to determine whether the broadcast PR firms that produce VNRs and/or the TV newsrooms that air them were changing their practices. The 54 VNR broadcasts documented in CMD's new report were uncovered by tracking 109 VNRs. Since 109 VNRs represent just 2% of the estimated 5,000 VNRs sent to U.S. television newsrooms over six months, the 54 broadcasts documented constitute only a small fraction of total VNR use.

The strongest level of disclosure seen came from KSFY-13 in Sioux Falls, SD, though it can hardly be attributed to the station's initiative. KSFY-13 aired an entire, uncut VNR from the broadcast PR firm D S Simon Productions, complete with narration by publicist Sonia Martin. At the end of the VNR -- and of the KSFY-13 segment -- the words "Video provided by American College of Physicians, publisher of Annals of Internal Medicine" briefly flashed on the screen and Martin signed off, "On behalf of the American College of Physicians, I'm Sonia Martin."

This built-in client notification appears to be a new practice at D S Simon, likely in reaction to CMD's first "Fake TV News" report. While a step in the right direction, most stations airing D S Simon VNRs actively denied disclosure to their news audiences by editing out the notifications. In 12 of 15 broadcasts of D S Simon VNRs originally containing client notifications, TV stations failed to provide any disclosure to news audiences. It's hard to imagine how this could be due to simple mistakes on the stations' part, as many claimed following the release of our "Fake TV News" report.

CMD also saw a number of questionable approaches to disclosure, such as ambiguous on-screen labels. Such marginal attempts, coupled with the variety of approaches used, suggest that the FCC needs to clarify what constitutes the requisite "clear" disclosure of a VNR's "nature, source and sponsorship" -- and for the agency, in concert with TV stations and broadcast PR firms, to work to ensure that that minimum standard is met in practice.

We also noticed some subtle changes in TV newsrooms' use of VNRs, compared to what CMD documented in our previous "Fake TV News" report. Stations cited in our follow-up research were more likely to edit VNRs and to re-voice them using local reporters or anchors (85 percent of VNRs were edited, versus 64 percent in the earlier report; and 85 percent were re-voiced, versus 61 percent). Stations were also more likely to include video footage outside of the pre-packaged VNR in the aired segment (22 percent of segments included outside video, versus 13 percent in the earlier report). However, in one case, the outside video appears to have come from other VNRs. Other segments included what looks like promotional video or generic background footage.

In sum, television newscasts -- the most popular news source in the United States -- continue to air VNRs. Overwhelmingly, stations fail to offer any disclosure of the nature or source of the sponsored video. Broadcast PR firms and TV stations appear to have done little to constructively address the serious problems documented in the "Fake TV News" report, even following the August 2006 launch of the ongoing FCC investigation into undisclosed VNRs.