This topic was spawned by the debate over the US media campaign in Iraq. You can find that thread here. In that thread I described something called a "Video News Release" (VNR) in general terms about how some news is done in this country. Nighttimer, a journalist himself (I think) took exception to the VNR as being "checkbook journalism" saying in part....



I disagree. So, I thought it would be interesting to pose a real life example of a VNR here and see what y'all think about whether this is legitimate news or checkbook journalism. The following story is true, the names have been changed to protect the innocent....

A drug company develops a new blood test for screening for prostrate cancer. After going through the normal FDA certification process, clinical trials and the like, this test gets approved by the FDA. Based on the trials, this new test is clearly superior to the existing test because it has been shown to be more accurate than the existing test for prostrate cancer. However, like the previous test, this is a medical laboratory procedure only, not something one can do at home. You can't run out and buy this test at your local drug store.

So, the drug company hires a public relations company to get the word out about their new test. Naturally doctors and medical labs are notified about it, but this PR company also wants to get the word out to the public and in order to do that they hire a media production company - I'll talk about why later on. This is where the VNR gets into the loop.

The media company makes a VNR, interviews with doctors and researchers who participated in the clinical trials, experts on prostrate cancer. This VNR looks like a news package and is produced by experienced professional journalists. It contains interviews, factual information about prostrate cancer such as who is most at risk, odds of survival, importance of screening, etc. It also contains background video footage, so-called "B-roll" showing lab technicans doing their thing, stuff like that. For the purposes of this debate, let's assume all of the information contained in this VNR is absolutely true, and it really is. Before the final VNR is released it is reviewed by lawyers, doctors, researchers and God, and the all have to sign off on it. The idea is to raise awareness about prostrate cancer in the hopes that more men at risk will get tested for it. The more tests that are done, the more money the drug company makes so there is a profit motive going on here. I will also point out that the more tests that are done, the more men with prostrate cancer will find out about their condition in time for it to be treated successfully.

Once the VNR is finished and approved, the media company contacts every media outlet in the country via FAX and phone and notifies them that this VNR will be broadcast on satellite at a certain time. It will go out with a complete script of questions and full slates of text information. Any television station is welcome to use any part of the VNR, free of charge. They can use the interviews and cut them in with the B-Roll and their own reporter doing the voice-over. Important fact here, no money changes hands. Stations are not paid to run this story and the media company is not paid by stations who run this story. The VNR does have a special encoding embedded in it so that it can be tracked by the media company about when, where and how much of it played. The media company uses this data to report to the client how well they did at getting the story out.

Ok, there's the scenario. And in this case it was a highly successful media campaign. Stations around the country ran portions of this VNR, interviews with experts in the field that local stations would never be able to do on their own.

So, after all of that my simple question for debate.....








Is this legitimate news or checkbook journalism?

If the fact that I've been at this since 1992, written for dozens of newspapers, online publications, appeared on television and radio, served as the editor of a weekly Black newspaper, won awards and have been a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, National Book Critics Circle, the National Association of Black Journalists and currently hold the position of second vice-president of the Columbus Association of Black Journalists means anything, my dear Aquilla, it does mean that I am a journalist.

Now to the question you posed. As I said in the other thread, I'm not unfamiliar with press releases written as if they were being created by real journalists. But the fact remains that video news releases are still press releases in a different format.

Your question, Aquilla fudges the nature of VNR's. It's not whether the drug company is paying a program director to run it. It's whether it's real, authentic and genuine news that has been authenticated by a journalist. That's what's missing in your chain. I don't mean someone who USED to be an anchorman or a reporter. I mean checked out by someone who IS a anchorman or a reporter.

Which means video news releases aren't news. They aren't fact-checked by reporters. The vested interest involved that produce them aren't disclosed to the public. Nobody knows if GlaxoSmithKline or Pfizer has shelled out thousands of dollars to produce a bogus "news" report by bogus "reporters."

That's not to say VNR's are bad. Many can be useful and informative, especially for a televison news programmer who has limited time, resources, money and manpower to throw at a complicated subject that might tax their meager means. If I were a program director who had to choose between not providing the public with information that might be of value and a fuzzy ethical dilemma, I might err on the side of the public information. BUT---not without a disclaimer of precisely where the information came from and whom provided it.

Last year, the Bush Administration stirred up a controversy with the Food and Drug Administration's usage of VNR's.

WASHINGTON, March 14 — Federal investigators are scrutinizing television segments in which the Bush administration paid people to pose as journalists praising the benefits of the new Medicare law, which would be offered to help elderly Americans with the costs of their prescription medicines.

The videos are intended for use in local television news programs. Several include pictures of President Bush receiving a standing ovation from a crowd cheering as he signed the Medicare law on Dec. 8.

The materials were produced by the Department of Health and Human Services, which called them video news releases, but the source is not identified. Two videos end with the voice of a woman who says, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."

But the production company, Home Front Communications, said it had hired her to read a script prepared by the government.

Another video, intended for Hispanic audiences, shows a Bush administration official being interviewed in Spanish by a man who identifies himself as a reporter named Alberto Garcia

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/15/politics...artner=USERLAND

Three days later The Association of Health Care Journalists issued a statement decrying the video news release by HHS.

"We ask that the practice be stopped. Viewers expect that anyone identified as a reporter is a journalist employed by a news organization. In this case, the so-called reporter was working for a public relations firm hired by a government agency. We find that misidentification unacceptable."

"The Association of Health Care Journalists calls on all news organizations to preserve their journalistic independence by avoiding the use of such video news releases. We warn the public to question the integrity of any such message."

On March 18, 2004, the Radio-Television News Directors Association & Foundation issued a news release "urging caution and disclosure when using Video News Releases." The RTNDA position paper on VNR's reads:

"RTNDA does not endorse the use of so-called video news releases, but neither do we reject their use, as long as that use conforms to the association's Code of Ethics.

"The RTNDA Code of Ethics calls on radio and television journalists to "guard against using audio or video material in a way that deceives the audience."

"Accordingly, RTNDA believes that sound journalistic practice calls for clear identification of all material received from outside sources, including material distributed in the form of video or audio news releases."

The Society of Professional Journalists makes its clear in its Code of Ethics to avoid media manipulation by advertisers, government agencies and others.

Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.

Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.

Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.

Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context.

Distinguish news from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two.

http://spj.org/ethics_code.asp

I have a lot of friends who work on the public relations side of the street. When I went to Ohio State both p.r. and journalism classes were taught in the same building. But these two professions often find themselves in opposition because their objectives frequently clash. Public relations is putting the best face forward. Journalism is revealing what's really behind that best face.

I'm totally opposed to anything that blurs the line and turns the news into just another adjunct of cynical advertising, media manipulation and product placement.

There is nothing about a VNR that prevents any reporter from fact checking it before airing it. The VNR I described consisted of interviews with doctors and researchers who had taken part in the clinical trials and reported their results to the FDA as a part of the certification process for the test. There were also other interviews with experts on prostrate cancer who discussed studies that had been published about the risk groups and mortality rate of prostrate cancer. All of these people were clearly identified as to who they were and what they did .ie. Dr. John Doe, Head of Onocology - XYZ University School of Medicine. Easiest thing in the world to pick up the phone and verify that.

If you want to fact check what the people in the interviews said, you could do that too, nothing to prevent that from happening. And, if they are lying, then you've got a real story. It would be highly unlikely though. Nobody in their right mind would pay to put out a false VNR, other than a politician I suppose but I did say "in their right mind". The consequences of doing that would be dire for a company and everyone associated with the project.

So, with all this fact checking going on anyway, why would a local television station air this VNR? Why not just do their own package themselves? The answer to that is that the VNR gives them interviews with people they normally wouldn't have access to. What they choose to do with those interviews is up to them.