More TV-related stuff
I meant to write about this yesterday, in my TV-themed post, but ran out of time. The Center for Media and Democracy publishes a very valuable resource called PR Watch, committed to investigating and exposing the often nefarious activites of the Public Relations industry in shaping public debate and opinion.
One tactic often used is the “Video News Release” - a ready-made news story sent to TV networks. One might think that networks would dismiss such material out of hand in favour of producing and breaking their own stories, but one would be wrong. The releases often passed-off as real news stories.
For example, A VNR by broadcast PR firm MediaLink Worldwide entitled “Global Warming and Hurricanes: All Hot Air?” emphatically denying the possibility of a link between climate change and extreme weather events, was aired by a local US network WTOK-11, accompanied by an introduction saying: “Hurricane seasons for the next 20 years could be severe. But don’t blame global warming.”
What viewers didn’t see was that in accompanying materials, the firm identified “TCS Daily Science Roundtable” as the client behind the segment. TCS Daily is a website published by Tech Central Station and was, at the time, a project of the Republican lobbying and PR firm DCI Group. (In October 2006, DCI sold the TCS Daily website.) DCI Group counts among its clients ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil gave the Tech Central Science Foundation $95,000 in 2003, for “climate change support.”
More details here. This happens with scary regularity with VNRs on a range of issues.
November 16th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
We don’t have such a body here, I think?
I wonder why a Japanese tourist would leap off the Skyline Gondola platform (Queenstown)?
Hardly anything negative gets out of the force field around Queenstown, (it isn’t spoilt by greedy development or anything) but I did find this:
New Zealand at a Crossroads
http://www.boston.com/travel/articles/2004/11/07/new_zealand_at_a_cros sroads/
JH
November 16th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
There is no organisation more slick or more media-savvy that Greenpeace, yet I don’t recall this “Center for Media and Democracy” expressing its righteous indignation when Greenpeace repeatedly gets its promotional videos broadcast as fake news.
What we’re talking about here is simply a couple of lefties squealing because the near-total left- wing, statist assumptions of the media get interrupted just occasionally.
November 16th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
I recall people saying Greenpeace was a “cult” based on ” awh, I saw it somewhere”.
When Greenpeace is campaigning, the other side always has a say (at least that’s my memory of events)
jh
November 17th, 2006 at 12:33 am
Nice analysis Mouldwarp. The NZ media is a near-total left wing puppet mouth piece. What with their marxist haranguing of Clark for refusing to pay back overspending, their continued socialist call for the tax cuts in both major dailies. This isn’t Kiwiblog, try not to batter the strawmen.
November 17th, 2006 at 8:38 am
Hey Mouldwarp, you’re my kind of guy! We should meet up for a drink one evening. I’m sure I can fit you in between Je Lan and Dianne sometime.
November 17th, 2006 at 10:12 am
Dr Dunny Brush Says:
November 17th, 2006 at 8:38 am
Hey Mouldwarp, you’re my kind of guy! We should meet up for a drink one evening. I’m sure I can fit you in between Je Lan and Dianne sometime.
Oh dear!..it seems I was wrong about this site, this type of post really does not achieve much at all does it.
November 17th, 2006 at 10:29 am
Big Bruv
The truth is that we are all quite human and as tolerant as we usually are, it is always possible for any of us to find a bit of outrage to express. Just note as well, that Mouldwarp’s original post wasn’t particularly edifying.
Mouldwarp does not like the Green movement in any form.
BJ
November 17th, 2006 at 11:08 am
the thing that gets me is that sometimes this american propaganda even incongruously shows up on our news. tv 3 in particular.
some of it is also produced by US government agencies.
does anyone remember a story which went something like this:
“it’s all about the oil, or so the politicians say. but new research in iraq is showing that it IS all about the oil - opposition to the US-led invasion that is”
the story went on to smear opponents of the invasion by suggesting they were bribed by iraqi oil.
the story was lifted entirely from an american network - american accent reporting & all, & the intro from the new zealand news reader simply parrotted the words in the report itself. bizarre.
November 17th, 2006 at 11:45 am
bjchip Says:
November 17th, 2006 at 10:29 am
“Mouldwarp does not like the Green movement in any form.”
It wouldn’t be much of a blog without contrarians.
JH
November 17th, 2006 at 11:59 am
The point was BJ that the technique criticised is used by many interest groups and may even have its origin in GP PR campaigns. So, in that context, the criticism of the technique above lacks balance given the close relationship between teh Greens and GP.
November 17th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
As I read it, Frog’s post doesn’t criticise the technique of producing Video News Releases. What it does criticise is media outlets that just run the VNRs as if they are hard news, rather than doing their own investigations into the claims made in the VNRs and breaking their own news.
Another point is that organisations like Greenpeace do not have interests that are threatened by the truth. That is not to say that environmental organisations don’t occasionally make factual mistakes in their media work. But when these occur they are genuine mistakes resulting from inadequate research and/or limited resources, rather than the deliberate distribution of misinformation to protect powerful economic interests.
November 17th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
toad Says:
November 17th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
>Another point is that organisations like Greenpeace do not have interests that are threatened by the truth.
Except that big organisations such as Greenpeace and the Greens tend to, of necessity, make committee decisions and they become (in a way) the product, for example ‘no’ to nucleur energy and ‘no’ to genetic engineering.
JH
November 17th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
Mouldwarp Says:
November 16th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
What we’re talking about here is simply a couple of lefties squealing because the near-total left- wing, statist assumptions of the media get interrupted just occasionally.
It is intersting to ponder why some people don’t like environmentalists and why a lot of people loath “developers”. Could it be that (once we admit that resources are finite) “”..I can’t be a giant tree because I have to consider that my roots are in the same soil as everyone elses and that my blocking the light limits the oppurtunity of the other trees around me” ??
JH
November 17th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
Toad
I think Frog’s original criticism was more about lack of disclosure of sources - I think contributed video is fine if it is clearly labelled. Amcams are encouraged by media orgs.
You cannot seriously say that GP doesn’t have a vested interest that is threatened. They are adamantly against nuclear power and whaling. No science will sway that view as far as I can see. The truth if it conflicted with their agendas, would threaten their membership numbers, revenues and ability to progress their campaigns. It wouldn’t be unusual for an environmental organisation to overstate the risks and shout down countering views. They too have a lot at stake.
November 17th, 2006 at 10:26 pm
Sheesh! … the technique of pushing a prepared video into the news channels goes back almost forever and had nothing to do with Greenpeace. These things have a long and sleazy past in the USA and I am quite sure that it was pure Madison Avenue long before it occured to the Republican Party, the Democrats or Greenpeace to use the technique.
I find it interesting that some of you feel it necessary to ramp up the criticism of Greenpeace to the point where now they invented this evil form and are guilty of promoting it. I am sure you don’t know anything of the sort. When I first saw it, in the USA, not here, it was commercial, not political… and quite possibly before some of you were even born.
The point… the criticism is about the uncritical presentation of cr@p by the news organizations. This is getting to be a habit for them and I don’t care whose cr@p is getting dumped in my living room, it stinks.
BJ
November 18th, 2006 at 4:02 am
Another TV-related subject : The unhealthy brainwashing of our children.
The UK has just announced a surprisingly broad ban on junk-food advertising aimed at children :
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1950542,00.html
[UK media regulator] Ofcom has announced a total ban on junk food advertising around all children’s programming, on all children’s channels and around all programmes that have a “particular appeal” to under 16-year-olds.
The restrictions are much harsher than the TV and advertising industry had been hoping for but fell short of a complete pre-watershed ban that health campaigners were seeking.
Sue Kedgely will be chuffed, she’s been pushing this subject for several years, maybe she’ll get some traction now that our chubby Pommy cousins have hauled themselves off the couch and into action.
OK, now the contrarians can bang on about what an intolerable curtailment of free speech this would be for the junk food pushers.
November 19th, 2006 at 3:52 pm
Well said Alistair.
Changes in the advertising “climate” are very important.
However, I find the junk programmes on TV (manily eminating out of the USA) even more worrying. They are a cheap way to fill the spaces and predominate on SKY TV, but they (along with some cheap British counterparts) are there on our free-to-air broadcasting channels as well.
Our vulnerable kids are growing up with the influence of the worst of (?) USA’s culture dominating their free time.
The effects are increasingly noticeable in our language, behaviour, and culture, and thus bring to mind the saying:
“There is no such thing as a free lunch”.
November 21st, 2006 at 11:53 am
goodness me, if i didn’t know better i’d think you objected to new cultural elements being shoved down our throats!
let me see if i can find you some suitable quotes..
“by all means take pride in being a “New Zealander”, but PLEASE at least try to recognise what that means.
We all are people of the Pacific now. We are shaped by it. We take pride in it. ”
“I do suspect that, whatever your wishes may be, american culture will become increasingly important in this country, ”
” It is clear that, as a conservative, you appear to dislike change. However change is an inevitable part of living in a global village, and an inevitable part of living in an increasingly multi-cultural country, which encourages immigration.”
haw haw!
peace