Published on Center for Media and Democracy
Fake TV News: News Release
By Diane Farsetta
Created 04/05/2006 - 19:42

Contact:
Diane Farsetta or John Stauber, CMD, (608) 260-9713
Craig Aaron, Free Press, (202) 265-1490 x 25

New Report: Fake TV News Widespread and Undisclosed

Investigation catches 77 local TV stations presenting corporate PR as real news

Groups file complaint urging FCC to take action against deceptive broadcasters

LINK

WASHINGTON The Center for Media Democracy and Free Press today exposed an epidemic of fake news infiltrating local television broadcasts across country. At a press conference in Washington with FCC Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein, the groups called for a crackdown on stations that present corporate-sponsored videos as genuine news to an unsuspecting audience.

CMD, which unveiled the results of a 10-month investigation, found scores of local stations slipping commercial "video news releases," or VNRs, into their regular news programming. The new multimedia report released today includes footage of 36 separate VNRs and their broadcast as "news" by TV stations and networks nationwide, including those in the nation's biggest markets.

The full report -- "Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed" -- is now available complete with VNR and TV station video footage at www.prwatch.org/fakenews/execsummary (1).

"It's shocking to see how product placement moves secretly unfiltered from the boardroom to the newsroom and then straight into our living rooms," said Diane Farsetta, a senior researcher at CMD and co-author of the report. "Local TV broadcasts -- the most popular news source in the United States -- frequently air VNRs without fact-checking, conducting their own reporting, or disclosing that the footage has been provided and sponsored by big corporations"

Investigators captured 77 television stations actively disguising sponsored content from companies including General Motors, Intel, Pfizer and Capital One to make it look like their own reporting. More than one-third of the time, stations aired fake news stories in their entirety as their own reporting.

Despite repeated claims from broadcasters that they do not air VNRs as news, the new report reveals just the tip of the iceberg. Instances of fake TV news documented by CMD likely represent less than 1 percent of VNRs distributed to local newsrooms since June 2005. Fraudulent news reports have likely been aired on hundreds of more local newscasts in the past year.

"The president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, Barbara Cochran, called fake news 'kind of like the Loch Ness Monster. Everyone talks about it, but not many people have actually seen it,' " said John Stauber, executive director of CMD. "This report drops a big nest of squirming Nessies in the laps of TV journalists. Fake TV news is the worst plagiarism scandal in American journalism, and it must be stopped by labeling all VNRs on screen so viewers can tell if its news or fake news."

Approximately 80 percent of the stations snared in the investigation are owned by large conglomerates. The list of the worst offenders includes Clear Channel, News Corp./Fox Television, Viacom/CBS, Tribune Co. and Sinclair Broadcast Group - whose Oklahoma City affiliate was caught airing VNRs on six separate occasions.

"The evidence suggests a strong connection between media consolidation and the broadcast of deceptive, pre-packaged propaganda," said Timothy Karr, campaign director of Free Press. "When all station owners care about is profit margins, fake news can prove irresistible. After all, VNRs are free. Reporting news that's meaningful to local communities isn't. And without decisive government action, the fake news problem will only get worse."

In conjunction with the report, Free Press launched www.freepress.net/fakenews (2) -- urging the public to contact the FCC and demand "No Fake News."

Free Press and CMD also filed a formal complaint with the FCC, seeking a thorough investigation "to help restore the public trust in the integrity of local news." The public interest groups want all VNRs be accompanied by a continuous, frame-by-frame visual notifications and verbal announcements disclosing their sources. They also recommended broadcasters be required to file monthly public reports detailing their use of government or corporate-sponsored material. The FCC complaint is available at www.freepress.net/docs/fcc_complaint_4-06-06.pdf (3)

The Center for Media and Democracy (www.prwatch.org -(4)) is a nonprofit, public interest organization that strengthens participatory democracy by investigating and exposing public relations spin and propaganda, and by promoting media literacy and citizen journalism.

Free Press (www.freepress.net -(5)) is a national, nonpartisan organization that seeks to increase informed public participation in media policy and to promote a more competitive and democratic media system.

Source URL:
http://www.prwatch.org/fakenews/release
Links:
http://www.prwatch.org/fakenews/execsummary
http://www.freepress.net/fakenews
http://www.freepress.net/docs/fcc_complaint_4-06-06.pdf
http://www.prwatch.org
http://www.freepress.net

A recent example of fake news is below. You have to add in the fact that Michael Bloomberg owns Bloomberg News, and must have good press in order to cling to his corporate allies. Notice in the article that there are no comments of anyone who disagrees with Joel Klein. Makes you think, doesn't it?

New York City Will Add Schools to Ease Overcrowding, Klein Says

A lawsuit has been filed over the class size matters issue:

Memorandum of New Yorkers For Smaller Class Size

LINK

April 18 (Bloomberg) -- New York City will build or expand 70 schools and add room for 70,000 more students to ease overcrowding, schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein said.

Klein, who leads the U.S.'s largest urban public education system, said plans include a school for kindergarten through eighth-grade students that will be part of a 75-story residential tower near Pace University and City Hall in lower Manhattan. New schools will be built in all five boroughs of the most-populous U.S. city, he said.

``Right now we have pockets of overcrowding that I think are severe, and we need to address that,' Klein, 59, said in an interview yesterday.

The city, with 1.1 million public school students, is moving forward with building plans after state lawmakers last month approved $6.5 billion in spending for construction and renovation, half of a $13 billion plan proposed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the city council.

Many schools face overcrowded classrooms amid a rise in immigration and the decision by more families to remain in the city instead of moving to the suburbs. Manhattan's population of children five years old and under has increased 26 percent in the past four years, according to U.S. Census data.

District 2 in Manhattan, which stretches from Battery Park City to the Upper East Side, is expected to grow by 24.7 percent to 29,206 students in 2014 from 2004, according to a city enrollment project study released last month.

2002 Takeover

``You have kids who are having classes in a hallway or in places inappropriate for learning,' said Thomas Sobol, a professor of education at Columbia University's Teachers College, in an interview. ``The new schools will provide a setting in which sound teaching and learning can flourish.'

Klein, a former U.S. assistant attorney general who led the Justice Department's landmark antitrust case against Microsoft Corp., was appointed by Bloomberg in 2002 to reverse declining student performance. About 331 of the 1,100 schools were declared failing institutions by the state when Klein became chancellor.

Bloomberg is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.

During Klein's tenure, the city instituted standardized testing as a requirement for promotion to the fourth grade, as well as a standard curriculum for math. His goals include improving building conditions, boosting student attendance, increasing graduation rates and lowering high school dropout rates, according to the education department Web site.

Graduation Rate

About 54 percent of New York City high school students graduated in 2004.

``You'll see the graduation rates go up about 10 points or so' by the time the mayor's second term is over in 2010, Klein said.

This month, Klein announced he is hiring Christopher D. Cerf, former president of Edison Schools Inc., to develop ways to improve the school district's operations. New York-based Edison manages public schools in 25 states.

He also hired Alvarez & Marsal, a turnaround specialist based in New York that has been hired to revamp the New Orleans school system after Hurricane Katrina.

The education department will start about 23 building projects in all five boroughs in the next year, education department spokeswoman Kelly Devers said. They include one in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and four high schools in the Bronx that will be located near each other and share facilities ranging from auditoriums to science laboratories, Klein said.

The biggest challenge facing the city's education department is improving middle school instruction, Klein said. It is difficult to find teachers who are certified in subjects such as math and science who wouldn't prefer to teach in high school, he said.

Competition

Several public schools now compete for students with the city's elite private schools, Klein said. In making performance comparisons for the system as a whole, he said, ``It's very hard for people who provide a $12,000-a-year product to compete head on with people who provide a $27,000-a year product.'

Private schools charge in excess of $26,000 a year in New York, compared with the $10,000 to $12,000 spent by the city each year per student. In September, Riverdale Country School in the Bronx will charge $31,200 for seniors and $29,000 for kindergarten.

City schools need to reduce the achievement gap between white students and black and Latino pupils and help them ``fully integrate into society,' Klein said.

``The way you're going to do that is through education,' he said. ``If we don't educate many more kids to a higher level, we don't have a solution as far as I'm concerned.'

Klein said that while some new programs weren't implemented as well as they should have been, he was ``very comfortable' with the work his agency has done during his tenure.

``I'm happy to let history judge how we do,' he said.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Patrick Cole in New York at pcole3@Bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 18, 2006 00:13 EDT

Class Size Matters: How FEW seats have been added to NYC public schools since Bloomberg took over.

Education Dept. paid commentator to promote law
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.

Williams on being paid to boost NCLB: "I wanted to do it because it's something I believe in."

The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.

Williams said Thursday he understands that critics could find the arrangement unethical, but "I wanted to do it because it's something I believe in."

The top Democrat on the House Education Committee, Rep. George Miller of California, called the contract "a very questionable use of taxpayers' money" that is "probably illegal." He said he will ask his Republican counterpart to join him in requesting an investigation.

The contract, detailed in documents obtained by USA TODAY through a Freedom of Information Act request, also shows that the Education Department, through the Ketchum public relations firm, arranged with Williams to use contacts with America's Black Forum, a group of black broadcast journalists, "to encourage the producers to periodically address" NCLB. He persuaded radio and TV personality Steve Harvey to invite Paige onto his show twice. Harvey's manager, Rushion McDonald, confirmed the appearances.

Williams said he does not recall disclosing the contract to audiences on the air but told colleagues about it when urging them to promote NCLB.

"I respect Mr. Williams' statement that this is something he believes in," said Bob Steele, a media ethics expert at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies. "But I would suggest that his commitment to that belief is best exercised through his excellent professional work rather than through contractual obligations with outsiders who are, quite clearly, trying to influence content."

The contract may be illegal "because Congress has prohibited propaganda," or any sort of lobbying for programs funded by the government, said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "And it's propaganda."

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said he couldn't comment because the White House is not involved in departments' contracts.

Ketchum referred questions to the Education Department, whose spokesman, John Gibbons, said the contract followed standard government procedures. He said there are no plans to continue with "similar outreach."

Williams' contract was part of a $1 million deal with Ketchum that produced "video news releases" designed to look like news reports. The Bush administration used similar releases last year to promote its Medicare prescription drug plan, prompting a scolding from the Government Accountability Office, which called them an illegal use of taxpayers' dollars.

Williams, 45, a former aide to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is one of the top black conservative voices in the nation. He hosts The Right Side on TV and radio, and writes op-ed pieces for newspapers, including USA TODAY, while running a public relations firm, Graham Williams Group.

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