VNR+vs+FCC

FCC vs. VNR Dan Magerr The FCC has announced a Public Notice against Video News Releases claiming they are impossible to differentiate from actual news reports. According to the FCC, VNRs need to inform viewers their sources when paid stations air their stories and when they deal with political and controversial issues. VNR companies are claiming that they fully agree with the philosophy of disclosure but in this case think these actions are not appropriate or required. Public Relations Society of America expresses the idea that extensive regulations and analysis on an entry level with production and prepackaged broadcast materials would clear up VNR’s when aired. Doug Simons the head of D.S. Simons Productions which is a VNR company is claiming that these allegations against Vide News Releases are in serious breach of their first amendment rights. In response to the FCC making a Public Notice Senator Ted Stevens is deciding exactly he’s going to do if anything to the Truth in Broadcasting Act. This happens to be congresses best attack for making information known against government funded VNR’s.

Every time the public watches the news they expect that journalists have gathered information from a relevant and quality source. Video News Releases do not do this. According to a New York Times article about government funded Video News Releases is that they do not necessary make outrageous claims but they tend not to have any opposing view critics. They seem to have extracted interview clips and pre-scripted questions/answers almost as if it were an infomercial. Privately funded VNR’s are a concern because they seem to plot their points around their supporting view instead of showing the real thing. Digital Magazine came out with an article about a VNR against an oil company where the producers pretty much stated to shoot anything that will make the oil company look bad. According to the Public Notice, listeners are entitled to know what exactly they are watching and should present any disclosure on television and radio.

Some surprising facts this article has found about VNRs is that they Neilson studies in the years 1992, 1996, 2001 found 100% of stations aired VNRs. In 2004 VNRs were getting aired 80% more on medical topics than in 2003. Disclosure to the actual audience with VNRs is 5% or less. Many VNRs were broadcasted all over the country with many having no idea the government’s role in production. VNR’s companies are now not just selling their videos to local stations and hopeful that they get played but PR firms are actually buying time slots to play VNRs. Due to the economics of our country today many small local stations are playing VNRs in order to compete with the larger market stations.

As stated before the reason FCC is making a claim against VNR’s is because they are seemly very hard to identify. Many stations get VNRs and don’t even know they are VNRs because the material arrives second hand from a regional network or satellite feed. This has been a concern with political and controversial issues. Confusion often arrives on whether a media is a VNR or not because it’s often difficult to determine. News claims many of the VNRs and their largest provider Pathfire is connected to 2/3 of all the news rooms across America. Overall this article clams that with all the information above, they should change the rules with VNR to be identifiable. The FCC has a lot of opposing facts against VNR’s and in the future something will change. Works Cited "Video News Releases: The Ball's in the FCC's Court | Center for Media and Democracy." //Center for Media and Democracy | Publishers of PR Watch//. Web. 05 Apr. 2011. .

Good work here, Dan. Check out the $4000 fine that the FCC issues to a New Jersey station. (A very small fine, actually.) Perhaps you can do some legwork and interview the station manager about this? http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db0324/DA-11-523A1.txt

Here's another one from the FCC database about a fine issued to a station in Minneapolis. http://www.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2011/DA-11-521A1.html

To me the interesting point is that both seem to have been iniitiated by the Center for Media and Democracy. This suggests that advocacy groups like this are largely responsible for enforcing the FCCs laws. I wonder: does FCC do it's own enforcement? Why or why not?

GRADE: A