Fake TV News

Medialink's Meltdown

Medialink Worldwide -- the largest producer of fake news products such as video news releases (VNRs) -- is in financial meltdown.

Wake Up and Smell the Product Placement

"Two cups of McDonald's iced coffee (BUY!) sit on the Fox 5 TV news desk" during Las Vegas station KVVU's morning news show, writes Abigail Goldman. It's a "punch-you-in-the-face product placement" that will last six months.

Weber Shandwick Bowls over the Army

How can you counter "daily stories and blog entries that portray the negative aspects of joining the military"? That was PR firm Weber Shandwick's job in the lead-up to the U.S. Army All-American Bowl in January 2008.

VNRs Down Under

Companies, government bodies and not-for-profit organizations have been using video news releases (VNRs) in Australia since 1995, reports Sally Jackson.

More Bad News for Fake News

As we have reported previously, Medialink Worldwide -- the largest producer of fake news products such as video news releases (VNRs) and audio news releases (ANRs) -- has fallen out of favor with inv

What the Pentagon Pundits Were Selling on the Side: Propaganda Meets Corporate Lobbying

The Pentagon launched its covert media analyst program in 2002, to sell the Iraq war. Later, it was used to sell an image of progress in Afghanistan, whitewash the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, and defend the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping, as David Barstow reported in his New York Times expose.

But the pundits weren't just selling government talking points. As Robert Bevelacqua, William Cowan and Carlton Sherwood enjoyed high-level Pentagon access through the analyst program, their WVC3 Group sought "contracts worth tens of millions to supply body armor and counterintelligence services in Iraq," reported Barstow. Cowan admitted to "push[ing] hard" on a WVC3 contract, during a Pentagon-funded trip to Iraq.

Then there's Pentagon pundit Robert H. Scales Jr. The military firm he co-founded in 2003, Colgen, has an interesting range of clients, from the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. Special Operations Command, to Pfizer and Syracuse University, to Fox News and National Public Radio.

Of the 27 Pentagon pundits named publicly to date, six are registered as federal lobbyists. That's in addition to the less formal -- and less transparent -- boardroom to war-room influence peddling described above. (There are "more than 75 retired officers" who took part in the Pentagon program overall, according to Barstow.)

The Pentagon pundits' lobbying disclosure forms help chart what can only be called a military-industrial-media complex. They also make clear that war is very good for at least some kinds of business.

A Defense of Even Faker News

Reed Pence of MediaTracks Communications wants his fellow public relations professionals to know there's nothing wrong with "guaranteed placement" -- paying to have radio or television stations air fake news. "Many PR pros face the challenge of acquiring coverage for a product that isn't newsworthy," he writes in a letter to PR Week. "Some believe that [guaranteed placement] is just advertising," but it's not, he claims.

Medialink's 'Fake News' Financial Woes

The giant of the fake news business, Medialink Worldwide, has fallen out of favor with investors. In the last year the company's share price has plummeted from $5.81 to its current level around the $1.70 mark. In its latest annual report, the company glumly states that sales in 2007 in the U.S.

Think Tank Citations Sink

"The 25 most media-prominent think tanks were cited 17 percent less in 2007 than they were the year before," according to an annual survey by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). "The overall ideological breakdown was the same ...

MultiVu Goes MultiCultural

The PR firm MultiVu has a new "social media news release targeting the U.S. Hispanic audience," reports PR Week. Its "Interactivo Multimedia News Release" (IMNR) distributes fake news "broadcast content, photos, and text to Hispanic social networks and news sites.

Syndicate content