Talk:Video news release

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[edit] March 2005 discussion

Lead in pretty good shape, other sections needing work. I think we need a section on Ethics of VNR use, working on that off-line. Calicocat 08:14, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)


The Public Relations Society of America is an industry trade group, inclusions of their self-serving statment in the lead, espcially in an in-line link which is eschewed according to wikipedia style directives, is obviously POV and inappropriate. Their statmentment on VNRs appears in the appropriate place within the article and maybe also be seen on their web site.

I realize propaganda is a difficult word, but when 20 government agencies and numerous corporations are involved in exactly that, its use in the lead of this article is both accurate and appropriate, failure to be accurate would be dissimulation and POV. VNRs are run without attribution, that is established fact, removal of that information is censorious and inappropriate. This issues present some difficult concerns relating to journalistic ethics which can not be dismissed with a few "should be" statements by an industry-supporting, clearly biased trade group. Calicocat 21:12, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

But stating that VNRs are propaganda is also a POV. GAO did not say that all VNRs are propaganda. They cited two specific uses of VNRs are propaganda. The reason why so many agencies and corporations use VNRs is because they're generally treated as a press release. Journalists can take as much or as little of the B-roll/VNR and use it however they wish - no different then a press release. Of course jounralistic ethics still apply. What I'm concerned about is that you have a very obvious POV about VNRS - that they're propaganda, that they're free from journalistic ethics, and that they're bad. Cultofpf
Thanks for commenting rather than just reverting. However, first, it's not two, it's at least seven and there's still more outstanding on this.Calicocat 14:53, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Calling a rock and rock is not POV, it's telling the truth -- please get the facts stright. VNRs are in fact a propagand technique, not all, but they nevertheless are that; failure to say so would be a lie. Do you want to include a lie in this entry? I do not. You make the claim that journalists treat VNRs the same way they do a press release, yet that's just untrue. There might be instances were a reporter quotes directly from press release, usually in attributed quotes (good, ethical reporters don't want pre-packaged quotes, good electronic journalists shoot their own b-roll.), but that's not at all the same as how VNRs have been and are being used; they are being used as a propaganda technique so that's what they, in part, are. Journalist who follow standard codes of ethics do not run word-or-word copies of a press release on the front page of, say, The New York Times. Now, saying, "it was just two" is kind of like saying someone is just a little bit pregnant. If two are propaganda or in violation of anti-propaganda laws is that still not propaganda? It sure is. Anyway, please see the GOA Report here which says, in part: Calicocat 14:53, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Would you also call a press release a propaganda technique? They contain bias and prepackaged points of view. Journalists routinely pull quotes from these releases without attributing them to the press release. Why the double standard? What I'm concerned about is that you're defining ALL VNRs by specific abuses documented by the GAO. It's like saying 100 men are drug users and then in the definition of men saying, men are drug users.Cultofpj 17:19, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
What I'm also concerned about is that you have an obvious bias that is clearly evident in both the article and the comments. You're willing to use the GAO to support your view of VNRs as "progaganda" in the top paragraph, but you're not willing to accept a trade association's definition of what VNRs are.
Please refrain from calling this bias on my part. That's just untrue. The facts are the facts. If anyone is biased it's the trade association, PRSA. Calicocat 14:50, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Explain why you are not biased, but a trade association representing thousands of individuals is? Why does your opinion have more weight on this issue then theirs?Cultofpj 17:19, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It is simply untrue that all "good" journalists shoot their own b-roll. Most small town television stations don't have the resources to do that so they pull B-roll satellite packages shot by other reports, press pools, or VNRs. Cultofpj 17:19, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The budgets of local television stations are an issue for those organizations, if they think it server their viewers to use unattributed VNR segment within their news reports that is an issue for their own organizations ethics. Calicocat 14:50, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
But wait - you said that the VNRs are unbounded by journalistic ethics - now you're saying that it depends on the organization's ethics? Cultofpj 17:19, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
"Seven of the eight VNRs include prepackaged news stories. As explained below, we conclude that the prepackaged news stories in these VNRs constitute covert propaganda and violated the publicity or propaganda prohibition because ONDCP did not identify itself to the viewing audience as the producer and distributor of these prepackaged news stories... [1] Calicocat 14:50, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
But again, the GAO NEVER says that ALL VNRs are propaganda. They say that these specific prepacked news stories, in their opinion, constitute propaganda. Cultofpj 17:19, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The article does not say "all VNRs are propaganda." And it's not just a question of "their opinion." Calicocat 14:50, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The article's lead does not say all VNRs are propaganda, but some, cearly, are. Saying it's both a public relations and a propaganda technique is just factual. Would you rather the article be a puff piece based on the defintions of industry-supporting trade associations? I don't think that would be valid or honest. Calicocat 14:50, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
"By its own records, ONDCP's prepackaged news stories reached more than 22 million households, without disclosing to any of those viewers -- the real audience -- that the products they were watching, which "reported" on the activities of a government agency, were actually prepared by that government agency, not by a seemingly independent third party. Jurith Letter app. E. This is the essence of the "covert propaganda" violation -- agency-created materials that are "misleading as to their origin." B302504, Mar.10, 2004 (HHS materials) (quoting B-223098, Oct. 10, 1986)ibid. There's more, please read that document and there's even yet more on this to come and already on the record, more of which needs to be put in the article. Calicocat 14:50, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
VNRs are both a public relations and propaganda technique, just the facts..., not saying they are both would be a lie. Thanks for your comments. Calicocat 05:47, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Cultofpf, I don't think it's good form or polite to break up one my comments with internal comments of yours, my comment is not part of a threaded dialogue and in doing so you placed part of what I said way out of context, substantially changing what I said; anyone reading this is going to be very confused. I moved the text I quoted from one GOA report back to it's original location in what was "my comment." I think it would be more helpful and polite if, in the future, should you want to respond to what I or anyone else posts in a comment, you quote from the comment and then respond, for example. While "Calicocat" says, "quote the text" I think, "place your comment and signature and make that part of one of your own, stand-alone comments." What you did is edit my comment rather than posting one of your own. Hope this helps :-) Calicocat 17:23, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Naive Perspective

I've never heard of [The Public Relations Society of America] but if there's a direct quote involved...

Possible ommitted attributions aside however, the use of the word "propaganda" in the opening sentence is not intrinsically POV. There was no implication that ALL VNRs are propaganda. If SOME VNRs are demonstrably propaganda, which I infer is undisputed, then the statement is factually correct and ideologically neutral. Arch o median 20:37, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Also some typos. Should be spell-checked prior to post.... Oh, and I thought the opening sentences were terribly long, but they flowed smoothly so maybe not an issue. Arch o median 20:40, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] If true:

"The Public Relations Society of America is an industry trade group, inclusions of their self-serving statment in the lead, espcially in an in-line link which is eschewed according to wikipedia style directives, is obviously POV and inappropriate."

Then this issue must be addressed. Arch o median 20:42, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] PR Newswire posting and removal

At 19:38, 30 August 2006, User:199.230.26.52 posted a fairly lengthy set of comments. At 19:47, 30 August 2006, User:199.230.26.51 deleted them. Since both IP addresses belong to PR Newswire, per ARIN WHOIS, I'm going to assume that whoever deleted the comments is (more or less) the same person who added them, and not revert the deletion.

I note that I reviewed the article and did some minor copyediting to make it more NPOV, included adding "citation needed" tags in two places where somewhat extreme claims (in my opinion) were made. I was planning to respond to the 199x comments here, following that edit, but will not get into a debate with an empty chair. John Broughton 20:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unsure of accuracy of this article

I have a number of concerns regarding this entry as it is rather incomplete and therefore appears biased in the approach. For example, describing an actor as a "paid actor" seems inflammatory as generally speaking, all actors are paid - and this merely seems to emphasize the commercial aspect of VNRs 20:44, 2 November 2006 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Inbirrabevitas (talk • contribs).

Welcome to wikipedia. Since this is your first day here (at least with that user name), a couple of suggestions. First, please follow Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages in the future. Second, if you have a gripe with the word "paid", in the article, it's probably faster to just delete it with an edit than to post a long message on the talk page and wait for someone else to agree (and presumably remove the word). Third, please read Wikipedia:Assume good faith. If this article is wrong, wikipedia policy says that you should assume the errors are out of ignorance, not bias. Fourth, and finally - there are certainly a lot of poor articles on wikipedia, something that's inevitable with over 1,000,000 topics that anyone can edit. Some articles get a lot of attention, and often are then pretty good; many just languish. When you find one you don't like, please consider it an opportunity to show what someone with an interest and a constructive approach can do. John Broughton | Talk 23:44, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


John - thank you for both the welcome and the very helpful suggestions and clarification. Thank you also for the invitation to take a constructive approach and edit the article - I will do so at my first opportunity and return to delete this discussion entry. 67.84.141.130 14:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
You're welcome. A quick look at your edits seemed to indicate a look of very useful additions to the article. I'll leave it to others to do a better review. Two comments: first, please don't delete your initial comment (above), since it will make this section read oddly (and, if you read Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines, you'll see that changing or erasing someone else's comments - even if they were in response to what you just deleted - is quite frowned upon). What you might do instead is shorten your initial comments, and even change the section heading (they are your words, so those you can change), but leave at least a little bit of text so there is still a dialog here. Second: If there any sources you can add to the article (see WP:RS and WP:CITE), that would be great. John Broughton | Talk 20:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
John - thank you again for your very helpful suggestions and feedback. I have strived to make them as objective and useful as possible. I will read the section on sourcing to see where I can source where possible. Thank you again for your warm welcome and opportunity to contribute. Inbirrabevitas 67.84.143.230 22:39, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
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