I found an interesting New York Times article about video footage supplied to television news stations in the form of press releases intended for insertion in the news cast. The article is from 2004, but I selected it because the issues are still relevant today.
Many companies, political parties, and government agencies produce this type of b-roll content. Even the University of Minnesota relies on this type of PR to get the word out about exciting University stories. This particular article talks about an instance of footage from the Bush administration featuring fake reporters attempting to put a favorable spin on a MEDICARE plan. In other articles I have read about this type of PR work, there were prevalent concerns about the footage misrepresenting the facts and trying to manipulate public opinion.
I would be interested to hear Don Shelby’s take on this type of PR and hear how prevalent it is in local TV news. Does WCCO have a policy about using supplied footage, for example? I am also interested on the impact of these type of homegrown newscasts appearing on YouTube.
Here is the link to the story I referenced: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E2DF1631F936A25750C0A9629C8B63&scp=3&sq=television%20news&st=cse
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Robyn, these VNRs (video news releases) seem to be most prevalent in the medical field--like pharmaceutical companies... a major issue with the use of them is that many news organizations unfortunately use them without acknowledging their source leading you believe it's their video. It's lazy journalism to treat them as news without doing original reporting on the subject and just doing simple editing and trying to pass it off as news--call 'em what they they are "video PR releases"!
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