News Fakers Respond

Hours after the Center for Media and Democracy released our study on television stations' widespread and undisclosed use of corporate video news releases (VNRs), a major organization of broadcast news executives issued its response.

"The Radio-Television News Directors Association strongly urges station management to review and strengthen their policies requiring complete disclosure of any outside material used in news programming," read the statement. RTNDA went on to caution that decisions involving "when and how to identify sources must remain far removed from government involvement or supervision."

Unfortunately, RTNDA's statement conflates "sources" with broadcast material funded by and produced for outside parties. It also conveniently ignores that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, under its authority to regulate broadcasters' use of the public airwaves, already has disclosure requirements (PDF) on the books. But RTNDA's stance does point to an important, underlying issue: how to ensure both news audiences' right to know "who seeks to influence them" and the editorial freedom of newsrooms.

The Society of Professional Journalists also responded to our study, strongly condemning TV stations' "irresponsible" and "misleading" use of VNRs. Their statement, similar to RTNDA's, "urges broadcast companies to set their own house in order by using extreme caution and full disclosure when airing VNRs." However, such admonitions fail to take into consideration the continuing confusion over video feeds' origins, the history of TV stations' failure to disclose VNRs, the harsh realities of resource-strapped TV newsrooms and the embarrassment factor that likely makes newsrooms reluctant to identify VNRs as such.

Is it reasonable, within the context of the current system, to expect TV stations to meet the disclosure standards that we all agree on -- and that the FCC is charged to uphold? After hearing the explanations and delving into the records of many of the TV stations that we documented airing fake news, I would say no.

TV News: A mistake-prone profession

By far, the most common response to our study from TV stations -- besides "no comment" -- was that mistakes or confusion led to their airing VNRs without disclosure. John Rossi, the general manager of Oklahoma City's KOKH-25, told me that his station made "an honest mistake" when it aired six of the VNRs that we tracked. "There was no intention to mislead the viewers," he stressed.

KOKH uses Pathfire, a digital video system that delivers real news feeds, VNRs and advertisements to many TV stations across the country. Rossi said that KOKH staff made "an assumption that it was not a VNR" if the video in question appeared anywhere else besides Pathfire's VNR section. He explained that Pathfire gives a "brief pop-up" notification if a video is a VNR, but that KOKH staff repeatedly missed that message as they were "going in to preview the text of the story."

Pathfire's website claims that the system provides VNRs "on the same platform as network news content, but in a clearly differentiated area so users enjoy all of the benefits of easy access with no potential source confusion." Rossi assured me that KOKH staff have now been directed to pay close attention to the Pathfire notifications. In the future, "if we air a VNR, we will disclose it," he promised.

Other TV stations' explanations were similar, if more vague. The news director at Los Angeles' KABC-7 told the Los Angeles Daily News, "ABC7 Eyewitness News has a policy against using VNRs in their entirety or even using excerpts without appropriate attribution and original reporting to confirm or contradict the claims. Nonetheless, a VNR about an allergy test called Immunocap did somehow slip through the cracks last September."