Robin Raskin Puts Fake News in Perspective

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Robin RaskinIn his new book True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society, Farhad Manjoo covers video news releases (VNRs) by looking at "VNR Queen" Robin Raskin. Manjoo describes a high-tech holiday gifts segment by Raskin, in which she warned that Apple's iPod makes kids vulnerable to "iPorn." While the Radio-Television News Directors Association -- which opposes any action to ensure VNR disclosure -- refused to talk with Manjoo, Raskin did. "I actually joked with my own colleagues that, 'Hey, I'm off to go do Whore TV'," she told him. "I was fully aware that that's what it was. And yet it's such a commonplace thing. I mean, there are people hawking drugs, guns, war. The worst that could happen to someone watching my segment is that you might buy a game you don't like."