Fake News

[The following is reprinted by permission. The author, Paul Curci, is publisher of Philadelphia City Paper. Disclosure: He's also a good friend and colleague of mine. He'll be around to read and answer your comments, so have at it.]

GUEST BLOGGER: PAUL CURCI

Fake News
By trying to save a buck, TV networks betray their own ethical codes.

As publisher of this newspaper, I'm disgusted at the depths to which corporate media has plunged. By definition, we in the alternative media have never really shared the same perspective as mainstream media. We view the world from another vantage point, and among other things, we act as the watchdog of mainstream media. Acting in that capacity, two New York Times reporters shed some light on news directors and editors who've been abusing the public trust.

Almost two weeks ago, David Barstow and Robin Stein reported that broadcast media outlets have been airing prepackaged, ready-to-serve video news releases, passing them off as real news.

Take Karen Ryan, for example. A year ago, the Times reported that Ryan, a former ABC news reporter turned PR consultant, has been selling the president's foreign policy, agricultural and health-care agendas to American viewers under the guise of real news. The practice continued for more than a year; each time, she ended her report with a familiar reporter's closing line, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting." She's been smacked around a lot since being exposed, and even describes herself, mockingly, as "a shill for the Bush administration."

She's not the only shill.In fact, according to The New York Times, some 20 government agencies have produced more than 100 of these video news releases over the past four years.

The segments are staged to look and feel like actual news reports, when in fact they're nothing more than carefully scripted commercials commissioned by various government agencies. And TV networks have been running them. No questions asked.

Referring to a number of video releases that aired in some markets, the article states: "To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City [featuring a jubilant Iraqi-American, after the fall of Baghdad] was made by the State Department. The "reporter' covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications."

This is fraud, manipulation and deception on a massive scale.

These practices, which are occurring far more frequently under the current administration, also took place during the Clinton years. And, although practiced mainly by broadcast media, the mainstream print media is also guilty. (Remember the syndicated columnists who were taking money from the government?)

Has corporate media become so desperate to preserve their bottom line that they're willing to toss their ethics completely out the window? What ever happened to the separation of press and state?

The motivation, sadly, seems profit-driven. Press releases are free; real stories cost money. Video press releases are valuable to certain corporate media scumbags. But, it also represents a legitimate threat to democracy — you know, that principle we're currently spending billions to spread.

Problem is, there are few watchdogs. You're not going to find any in government. Historically, that's been our job. As corporate mainstream media continues to lower its standards, the role of alternative media becomes more important.

After being challenged by the Government Accountability Office, who referred to these videos as "covert propaganda," the Justice Department has determined that these so-called "purely informational" news segments are legal.

Legal? How the hell can this be legal? And who are we supposed to trust?

Here's my solution. Question everything. Challenge everything you're being sold by the media. Start with this paper you're reading. Hold us accountable. Hold everyone in this industry accountable. Maybe if enough fake reporters are bitch-slapped, and a few editors and news directors lose their jobs, maybe, just maybe, we can get the genie back into the bottle.

To me, one Karen Ryan quote sums it up. "I just don't feel I did anything wrong," she said. "I just did what everyone else in the industry was doing."

Makes me wonder if we really even deserve freedom of speech.

Comments

[Eli]

on a practical level, what can regular citizens do ... other than complain?

[Lauren]

What Eli said.

[Linkmeister]

Here's something a J-school is doing.

I'd recommend reading Jay Rosen's PressThink; these issues have been under discussion there for months (check the archives).

[ChrisV82]

While I was sitting in the animal hospital at UPenn, I read this editorial in the City Paper. I wished I had taken the paper with me after I left, but my hands were full. Needless to say, I'm glad it's online. All of the content and none of the ink smudges.

As for what regular people can do - Stop watching. And when you stop watching, write a letter (via USPS) explaining why. A print letter is worth more than a phone call and more than an email. In the old days, they used to consider one letter to be the equivalent of 100 complaints (I think), because it took more time and thought than simply calling and bitching.

Who knows if it will matter, but money talks, and it's worth a shot.

[Alex]

All right -- here's a question.

How the hell did the public relations industry gain this stranglehold on all forms of newsmedia? Desperation for cheap content? Is that it?

And why the hell aren't Journalism schools teaching some basic ethics to these people? (The print ones make feeble attempts, and you have to at least pretend to have read Chomsky and McChesney, but is anyone asking TV people to do the same?)

[tas]

Should we consider journalism to be another victim of capitalism? All of these layoffs, which lead to TV stations chucking ethics out the window and airing government propaganda, wouldn't happen without stockholders breathing down somebody's neck. I can't remember the details right now, but I remember a passage in "The Media Monopoly" where a television executive, when asked how his news department earned money, simply replied tha it didn't. The entertainment shows bring in the money that funds the news department. But now news if for-profit... Just look at the results.

[Paul Curci]

ChrisV82, I think, offers a simple solution. Stop watching, and start writing. Although effective in terms of impacting ratings, tuning out doesn't go far enough. And, lower rating could end up accellerating this practice. But tuning out, AND writing could send a strong enough message that audiences are fed up with being manipulated, and could begin to hold news directors more accountable. As a publisher, I take complaint letters seriously, and I DO assume that for each one I receive, there are 100 more unhappy readers who haven't written. It's up to the public to protect it's own interest here, or, as Tas surmises, journalism could become "another victim of capitalism". Thanks for the comments.

As to Alex's valid question of how PR got their hooks into journalism, my answer would be, as you suggested, cheap content, and also, undoubtedly, pure laziness. Any decent j-school hammers home good ethics, because without them, journalists loses access and credibility fast. And, the media outlet loses value fast. Fighting the impulse to pander to corporate interests has clearly worn some editors and news directors down over the years, and now certain one, I believe, are just fighting to make it through the day. They've let their guard down, they've lost their appetite for serving the public interest. We need to remind them that integrity and profits really do go hand in hand in the long run.

[paul Curci]

Sorry, that last post was also by me.

[Rik]

Here's a game that's fun for the whole family. Pick up the business section of any major newspaper. Read an article that focuses on a single company, any company. Go to said company's website. Go to the Press or News section. Read the most recent press release. If you have to go through three articles in the paper before finding a corporate press release on the web that matches it, nearly verbatim, you are reading an extraordinary paper.