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WCBS Delivers News Placebo
On February 22, WCBS anchor Jim Rosenfield praised two over-the-counter nutritional supplements as delivering “a one-two punch to ease the pain.” What Rosenfield didn’t tell viewers is that the footage and story were lifted from Leiner Health Products, the company that markets the supplements.
Earlier this year, we exposed a plague of fake news on local television stations across New York. But even after a warning from the FCC, local stations continue to air corporate PR designed to look like objective news.
These stations slipped corporate-sponsored “video news releases” — segments promoting commercial brands and products — into their regular news programming. These advertisements were passed off to viewers as legitimate news reports.
Tell the FCC to Stop Fake News in New York
By disguising advertisements as news, stations violate both the spirit and the letter of their broadcasting licenses. This deception is not only illegal, it’s also a serious breach of the trust between these stations and the communities they serve.
The following New York stations have aired fake news:
- WKBW-7 in Buffalo*
- NY1 in New York**
- WCBS-2 in New York*
- WPIX-11 in New York**
- WUHF-31 in Rochester
- WSYR-9 in Syracuse*
*Exposed in original report in April.
**Exposed in original report in April and has aired other VNRs since.
At no time during these newscasts did the stations identify the corporate sponsors as the source of the footage. This deception violates FCC sponsorship identification rules and the broadcasters’ responsibility to serve the public interest.
Send a strong message to the FCC: Investigate this abuse by New York stations, enforce rules against the airing of covert propaganda and penalize all broadcasters that truck in fake news.
Tell the FCC to Stop Fake News in New York
You can also tell the local station managers to stop airing deceptive video news releases. To learn more about stations in your state, visit our Fake News Map and click on New York. Demand them to come clean about fake news!
Act Now!
Ira Horowitz
Online Community Organizer
Free Press
www.freepress.net
The full report — “Still Not the News: Stations Overwhelmingly Fail to Disclose VNRs” — is available at the Center for Media and Democracy: www.stopfakenews.org.
Filed under: Action Alert!, Corporations, Education, media, Press Release
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