Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"Health reporters should not rely on prepackaged stories," writes Maria Dorfner, whose company NewsMD Communications produces health-related videos. "Physicians who migrate to television news may lack actual reporting or producing skills." According to Dorfner, this results in their "relying heavily on prepackaged content.
What do you think about fake news? That's what the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has been asking our readers for the past two weeks.
We surveyed people about what the disclosure guidelines should be for video news releases (VNRs) and audio news releases (ANRs). (We do define "fake news" more broadly, as not just TV and radio segments provided by outside parties, but also pundit payola and any other media manipulation falsely presented as independent journalism. However, brevity is the soul of good survey response rates!)
Submitted by John Stauber on
Readers of the Sierra Club's magazine know it runs glossy full-page ads from car companies selling hybrids.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
The Yucca Mountain Task Force, "a national lobbying group that formed this spring" to advocate for long-term nuclear waste storage at the Nevada site, is traveling to the Yucca Mountain region, "to begin building ties" there.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"Tune into the power of radio," writes Betsy Goldberg in Tactics, the Public Relations Society of America's newsletter.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"The Kurdistan Regional Government has hired Republican lobby firm Russo Marsh & Rogers to get 'free media' to promote the interests of the Kurds in the post-Saddam Hussein Iraq," reports O'Dwyer's. One goal of the Kurdish leaders is "the return of Kirkuk," an oil-rich northern Iraqi city populated by Kurdish and Turkmen people.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
Following the execution of Nigerian environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa and its attempt to dump the Brent Spar oil platform in the ocean, Shell appointed a dozen people to oversee its image overhaul. A decade later, Simon Longstaff, one of Shell's twelve and the director of Sydney's St. James Ethical Centre, lashed out at Shell. "The process we went through was thorough and exhaustive, but what concerned me was seeing the marketing arm of the company turn it into a PR exercise as soon as we had finished," he said.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"There are many reasons why nuclear power is back on the agenda," reports Liz Minchin. There's global warming, and there's a "well funded and carefully planned international public relations strategy selling nuclear power as a 'clean, green and safe' solution to global warming." International conferences have been key to the effort, writes Minchin.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
In March 2002, Andy Gallagher, then the spokesperson for West Virginia's Department of Environmental Protection, drafted a media release to inform residents in Wood County that the toxic chemical C8 was being emitted from DuPont's local plant. But the statement was never released.
"In this time of testing, our troops can know: The American people are behind you," George W. Bush said in his national address last Tuesday night at Fort Bragg.
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