Technology Report Secretly Has Intel Inside

On January 3, 2006, KOKH-25 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, aired a two-and-a-half minute feature on the latest advances in Internet-capable television, a sunny report in which new technologies give consumers "access to entertainment they can control on their own terms."

The only new technology featured in the report, however, is the Viiv™ media network platform from Intel. That's no surprise, considering that the entire story was taken from a video news release (VNR) created by D S Simon Productions and funded by Intel.

KOKH-25 modified the VNR by editing the order of soundbites and inserting network-branded graphics over the video, but they left in the narrating voice of the D S Simon publicist Sue Berg. KOKH-25 anchors failed to identify to viewers Berg's affiliation with the company during the segment's introduction. They also failed to disclose that every shot, soundbite and piece of information featured in the story came from D S Simon or Intel.

In the course of the ten-month study, the Center for Media and Democracy has observed KOKH-25 airing unsourced VNRs on six separate occasions, for Trend Micro Software, Panasonic, Cadillac, Chemistry.com and Towers Perrin.

View the original VNR, as well as the KOKH-25 news story, below.