
Local TV stations pushed the same Amazon-scripted segment - edward
https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/05/26/11-local-tv-stations-that-pushed-amazon-scripted-segment/
======
hbosch
Yeah... my eyebrows raised the first time I heard about this type of thing.
Someone I know was in a news segment shot and produced by some company I had
never heard of before (I don't recall the name). They said it would be on the
news. The segment was produced, and when I asked where it was going to air,
they said "50-60 local news stations around the country" and I was baffled...
don't local news stations just produce their own news? No, not all of it.

There are companies like Sinclair and Scripps that produce and purchase news
segments, and then run them in their own markets, and sometimes these
companies will literally BUY news from companies that the news is about! And
those companies, sometimes marketing or PR companies, are telling their own
stories. It's "white label news". I guess the equivalent is what we call
"advertorials" online?

~~~
hbosch
And some links for anyone who wants to see more about these topics...

Sinclair Broadcasting owns local stations, most likely at least one near you:
[http://sbgi.net/tv-stations/](http://sbgi.net/tv-stations/)

Scripps I believe is a bit smaller, but also owns a lot of local stations:
[https://scripps.com/our-brands/local-media/](https://scripps.com/our-
brands/local-media/)

So if Sinclair and Scripps both run the same newswire story, for instance,
that is a country full of people getting it through their local -- often "most
trusted" \-- news station. A lot of stations get the "final say" on what does
and doesn't run, but sometimes they do not.

Wikipedia entry for "Video news release":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_news_release](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_news_release)

Wikipedia entry for "Satellite media tour":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_media_tour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_media_tour)

And finally:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_literacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_literacy)

~~~
Cthulhu_
Yup; don't ever believe any news outlets is independent, they are often owned
by a single entity. In the UK for example, most media is owned by News Corp.,
aka Rupert Murdoch. They have the power to change the narrative and public
opinion, and with that, sway elections in their favor.

I feel like politics nowadays is not so much a fight between politicians, but
between corporations with conflicting interests and the handful of people at
the top behind them, and the parties paying them (including foreign powers).

~~~
Angostura
> most media is owned by News Corp

This I'm afraid isn't true, though it may feel like it.

None of the free-to-air TV channels are owned by News Corp, which remains the
purview of BBC and ITV in the main. It has minimal investment in radio
stations. It has The Sun, The Times and Sunday Times. It used to have the News
of the World.

It doesn't have the Mail, Express, Independent, Guardian, Mirror etc.

~~~
nca-peripherals
In terms of revenue globally, the top five are: AT&T, Comcast, Disney,
ViacomCBS, and Fox. The are mainstream media oligopolies in most countries
these days, but the beauty of the internet is that independent journalists and
voices who have been shut-out and banned from the corporate-establishment fold
like Ralph Nader and Chris Hedges can still find tiny soap-boxes to speak
truth to power since almost no one else is doing it. Then there's people like
Jimmy Dore who will never get taken seriously by the establishment because he
doesn't have the wealth, pedigree, or entitled rich-dbag attitude to be let
into their club.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownersh...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership#Top_Five)

------
JackFr
So it turns out local news isn’t actually public service, but really just the
cheapest crap they can produce to run between ads for local car dealers. Go
figure.

~~~
bosswipe
Didn't used to be this way, the FCC used to be much more serious about
treating public airways as the public resource that they are.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
It used to be "broadcast" was really broadcast over limited public airwaves.
Now it's all IPTV and streams and there is no practical limit on the amount of
content that can be distributed, which was always the justification for
regulating it.

The real problem now is nobody wants to pay for anything when the competition
is free. "You're not the customer, you're the product" doesn't only apply to
Google.

~~~
ac29
100% percent of the stations listed in the article have broadcast over the air
stations (their FCC callsigns are given). I couldn't speculate how many people
consume these station's content via broadcast versus some other medium,
though. I wouldn't be too surprised if it was more than a few years ago, but
definitely significantly less than 20+ years ago.

As as aside, as someone who works in the regulated radio industry, I actually
wish there was more enforcement of FCC rules. As is, they are mainly a
regulatory body, not an enforcement one - its extremely unlikely you will
receive the FCC's attention for operating without a license or breaking other
rules. But, please dont do these things, its easy and inexpensive to get
amateur/personal/business licenses and you risk interfering with public safety
or other critical users of the radio spectrum. Here's a list of enforcement
actions for rule violations and unlicensed operation:
[https://transition.fcc.gov/eb/FieldNotices/](https://transition.fcc.gov/eb/FieldNotices/)

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> 100% percent of the stations listed in the article have broadcast over the
> air stations (their FCC callsigns are given). I couldn't speculate how many
> people consume these station's content via broadcast versus some other
> medium, though.

Even the percentage doesn't really matter because the scarcity isn't there
anymore. You don't have to get on broadcast TV in order to reach an audience
anymore. PewDiePie has more subscribers than Fox and NBC have viewers
combined.

When broadcast TV was the only way to deliver video to millions of people, you
had to care what was using that capacity because it came at the expense of
carrying something else. Now it's just one more way to deliver bits.

If anything it's now YouTube in that position, because they're just about the
only way for ordinary people to reach a large audience. But in that case the
constraint still isn't that they're carrying something bad instead of
something good, since everything is carried in addition to rather than instead
of everything else, but rather that they might refuse to carry something good
which then has no other reasonable alternative for distribution.

------
justinsaccount
This is literally all they do

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI)

~~~
sethammons
This was the first video that popped into my head after watching the video
from TFA. I've seen similar ones in the past for talking points against
political candidates and such. One that sticks out was "gravitas", a word
parroted by media everywhere during an election cycle some years ago. This is
a big part of why I avoid "news" anymore.

~~~
WalterBright
"optics" entered the news vernacular very recently, now everyone uses it.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
This one drives me nuts when the Sunday morning bobble heads toss the wrong
word around when they want to use "perception".

~~~
SilasX
>when they want to use "perception".

Or "PR". I'd hear "doing that would make for bad optics" where I'd previously
"... for bad PR". It irritates me for some reason.

------
MatekCopatek
Whether it's companies or governments, press briefings are already an entirely
accepted thing. If you think about it, it's a scary concept - someone with a
clear motivation to control the story picks journalists they like, invites
them to a place of their choosing and feeds them a carefully constructed
narrative.

Flat out doing the segment for them seems like the natural next step.

~~~
_bxg1
But there's a big difference: a press release is very up-front about being a
curated message from the company. The scary thing here is that it's
masquerading as independent coverage.

------
duxup
>“I was not aware the package was provided by Amazon.” Armstead said, “We’ll
make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Where did it come from exactly?

Did a segment just show up on his desk on a USB drive and he thought "oh look
a video... we should run this"?

~~~
dlgeek
Businesswire:
[https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200521005268/en/Ama...](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200521005268/en/Amazon-
Transforms-Operations-Response-COVID-19.-Company-Protecting)

------
nojito
>UPDATE: Amazon responded by stating the video and script were published to
Business Wire as are many other companies’ in-house produced content for media
organizations.

Local news doesn't have budgets to do in-depth reporting 24/7 so they use the
newswires to get stories to fill time.

You can see the wire post here.

[https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200521005268/en/Ama...](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200521005268/en/Amazon-
Transforms-Operations-Response-COVID-19.-Company-Protecting)

Title is very misleading.

~~~
Someone1234
Title isn't misleading at all.

"It happens all the time" doesn't make it misleading, or invalid. In fact that
makes it far worse.

It needs to be declared. It doesn't matter if they're reading from Amazon's
packet or the Pentagons, a declaration is appropriate and even vital to help
maintain a healthy democracy.

What's odd is that if a YouTuber did this the FCC's regulations[0] require
they disclose it, but not local TV stations evidently?

[0] [https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-
center/guidance/ftc...](https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-
center/guidance/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking)

~~~
bcoates
I think you don't understand the difference between a press release and an
advertisement.

This is a press release, the FTC link is about endorsements (which are
advertising).

YouTubers would not be required to disclose this.

~~~
Someone1234
It is an advertisement distributed in the form of a press release (or more
accurately a media packet with included script and video content).

Using the term "press release" like it is some kind of legal shield is non
sequitur. It doesn't matter if the ad is a billboard, graphic, sidewalk
spinner, or press release it is still an advert designed to promote Amazon,
and an undisclosed one at that.

If a YouTuber wasn't required to declare it, that would be wrong too.

~~~
Spivak
Can a company issue a press release talking about their products or business
without it being an ad by your standard?

Like what would a hypothetical press release for the release of the Xbox 360
that isn’t an ad look like?

~~~
Someone1234
> Can a company issue a press release talking about their products or business
> without it being an ad by your standard?

I think you've lost sight of what we're discussing.

We're not discussing the morality of press releases, what we're discussing is
a THIRD PARTY media organization reading from a script and re-showing video
footage sent to them from a company without declaring that they're doing so.
It is the repetition without source-context that is the sin, not the original
company's media publications.

So are Microsoft's press releases about the XBox 360 ads? Yes. Is that wrong?
Absolutely not. The "wrong" is a different media company taking that content
and repeating it verbatim without declaration or contextualization (e.g.
quotation marks).

If money (or other benefits) changed hands between the company benefiting and
the media company reporting, that only compounds the immorality of it.

------
yellowapple
> In response to a request for comment on why the station ran the package, Wes
> Armstead, news director of the Bluefield NBC affiliate WVVA, told COURIER,
> “I was not aware the package was provided by Amazon.” Armstead said, “We’ll
> make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Mr. Armstead is either blatantly lying or astoundingly incompetent if he's
seriously going to claim that he has no knowledge of his station's news
sources.

~~~
np_tedious
When in doubt, the package is from Amazon

------
WalterBright
This has been going on forever. Magazine content in particular was often
written by PR departments of various companies. Even when it wasn't, the
"journalist" writing it knew that if he didn't write what the company wanted,
he wouldn't get invited to junkets, press parties, etc.

Just yesterday, the NY Times ran a prominent Opinion piece that read to me
like a promotion for the author's book. Pretty great marketing.

------
LatteLazy
I'm both concerned and relieved people are noticing this. For over a decade
media has repeated government press releases as fact, often word for word. For
a long time they've "covered" corporate crap the same way ("thanks for filling
the spaces between our adds, we don't care what you say"). People seem to have
a real issue with Amazon (for good reason) so now they're starting this BS,
maybe it will be questioned?

------
zitterbewegung
Paul Graham talked about this in this essay
[http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

~~~
thundergolfer
Herman and Chomsky wrote “Manufacturing Consent” in 1988. It’s a comprehensive
description of the media propaganda system, of which this Amazon thing is a
single example.

------
ChrisMarshallNY
This is a little old, but is probably fairly relevant...

[https://www.crikey.com.au/2010/03/15/over-half-your-news-
is-...](https://www.crikey.com.au/2010/03/15/over-half-your-news-is-spin/)

~~~
BLKNSLVR
I can't speak highly enough of Crikey, totally worth the subscription.
Journalism as it was meant to be.

TL;DR of the above:

"2203 stories. 10 newspapers. A five day snapshot. Six months’ worth of
research"

"Crikey reveals the results of a six-month investigation into the role PR
plays in the Australian media, finding that 55% of newspaper stories analysed
were driven by PR."

~~~
ChrisMarshallNY
I have a feeling that the story may be past its "sell-by" date:

[https://www.crikey.com.au/spinning-the-
media/](https://www.crikey.com.au/spinning-the-media/)

I would not get a subscription to view that story (it is probably the only one
that is relevant to me, in the US), as I'll bet I would get the sub, and the
story would still be dead.

Which makes me very sad. I believe in supporting these types of orgs, but they
need to deliver (Crikey is not cheap -
[https://www.crikey.com.au/subscribe/](https://www.crikey.com.au/subscribe/)
).

~~~
BLKNSLVR
Crikey is a small news company based in, and only really concerned with,
Australia. Yeah, it definitely wouldn't be a worthwhile subscription for
anyone not specifically interested in Australian news, I probably should have
disclaimered that.

I logged in with my account and, yes, that story is dead, there's no content.
That's disappointing.

I'll send them a notification and see if they'll put it up without a paywall
since it's relatively old content (but still pertinent).

Edit: notification sent.

~~~
ChrisMarshallNY
Cool. It would be great to see the original (I never read the whole thing).

Most newspapers and magazines in the US have some kind of "fee-per-article"
archival service. Some will allow unfettered access to their archives with a
regular subscription, but others may ask a fee, even for subscribers.

NYT has its "TimesMachine":
[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser/](https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser/)
I'm not sure if it's available to non-subscribers. I am a subscriber, but I
need to purchase page reprints.

~~~
BLKNSLVR
Crikey support got back to me and offered me this link:

[https://www.crikey.com.au/topic/spinning-the-
media/](https://www.crikey.com.au/topic/spinning-the-media/)

There are a lot of articles listed, but if you scroll down there will be a
clump that are actually entitled "spinning the media" all of which are dated
in March 2010, which are all the parts to their 'special investigation'.

This article is almost directly relatable to the topic of this thread:
[https://www.crikey.com.au/2010/03/25/spinning-the-media-
pre-...](https://www.crikey.com.au/2010/03/25/spinning-the-media-pre-packaged-
journalism-just-download/)

(and it's from 2010 - we've had a decade of normalization between that article
and the one that initiated this thread!)

P.S. No paywall!

~~~
ChrisMarshallNY
Awesome! Thanks!

That is quite a collection!

------
throwawaysea
I've heard before that this is common practice, both for written articles and
segments. It does seem like an unhealthy relationship to have journalists in a
position where they have to either run with what they're given or risk being
excluded by private organizations in future press interactions. But that is a
bigger societal problem we are exposed to, beyond just Amazon.

~~~
BLKNSLVR
I would think that it bodes well for society for journalists to be excluded by
private organisations in future press interactions. It only bodes poorly for
the individual journalist that would be receiving special treatment from said
private organisations.

Enforced exclusion from press interactions by a private organization is its
own story worthy of publishing, and likely bad PR.

~~~
Spooky23
It’s cooperate or die. The easy sources are mostly gone... mid level political
people and normal workers can be hunted down pretty easily with modern tech,
and subject to criminal sanction in some cases.

A close relative was a well known local public official in the 80s and 90s. In
those days, the investigative reporters made more than he did and were
relentless. In one case, he caught a guy climbing into the plenum over a
ceiling tile to try to hear portions of a meeting in executive session.

Now, good reporters aspire to work in PR shops.

~~~
admax88q
We'll its also cooperate and die. As increased cooperation undermines any
trust in the news organization which contributes to diminished
viewer/readership.

------
runawaybottle
South Park satirized it best:
[https://youtu.be/z696bTiP8Ro](https://youtu.be/z696bTiP8Ro)

------
iso947
The concept is nothing new, PR firms have been providing packed content for
news consumption for years, and news organisations with ever decreasing
budgets and time simply use them verbatim.

I’m sure there are criticisms about specific points, there always are, but I
was aghast reading Flat Earth News a decade ago. I encourage everyone to pick
up a copy for £3 on kindle

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Davies#Critical_reaction_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Davies#Critical_reaction_to_Flat_Earth_News)

~~~
downerending
This is correct. Had a friend in PR who did this sort of thing. They have
money and time, and local news stations do not.

It's probably not so bad when the piece is on the wonders of asparagus and why
you should eat more.

~~~
marakv2
It is that bad (imo), unless it's clearly stated that it's a paid
advertisement (that's what PR is), then you cannot trust your news source.

~~~
Spivak
But it’s not a paid advertisement. It’s a corporate blog post published to an
RSS feed for journalists to do with as they please.

It’s worse than a paid advertisement because news orgs are running it for free
and doing absolutely nothing novel or critical with it.

~~~
marakv2
Their not paying for it? That doesn't seem right.

------
jpeg_hero
HN discovers the concept of "Press Packet"?

~~~
Spivak
And businesswire, newswires in general, press releases, and lazy reporting!
All at once!

But really though. It’s one thing to buy air time or use your controlling
interest in news stations to run misinformation campaigns. Publishing an
article to what is essentially an RSS feed for journalists and them running
the story verbatim is on the news station, not the company.

------
asdfasgasdgasdg
According to Amazon, it was just a press release, which they pushed via the
same channels they push any other press release. (See the update at the end of
the article.)

~~~
shockinglytrue
I wasn't aware press releases could include a script for a presenter. Is this
really common? What is the industry name for these packages?

~~~
testbot123
They're called "video news releases" (VNRs):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_news_release](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_news_release).

~~~
shockinglytrue
Thanks for this. I'm absolutely in shock this process is so industrialized,
and that it has apparently managed to survive so long, and even through fake
news being a huge topic in US politics

~~~
Spivak
I would guess because there’s no real coercion in it. A company has every
interest to make it as easy as possible to news outlets to run the story and
to so they write the whole thing and leave it to the journalists if they want
to do anything else with it. Some - many - are lazy and just publish it
verbatim.

------
dusted
I LOVE myself some dystopian 80s sci-fi.. On my TV! not in my reality!

------
dehrmann
As others have said, this is apparently a common practice, but what does it
mean for the credibility of The Washington Post? If a Bezos-run has no
problems pushing a press release as news, what's to stop a Bezos-owned
newspaper from doing the same?

------
M2Ys4U
I'm so glad that this is illegal in the UK

