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Keep Local TV Newscasts
Free of Hidden Corporate Propaganda

Free Press and the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) have revealed that corporate propaganda continues to infiltrate local television news across the country.

Stations are slipping corporate-sponsored “video news releases” or VNRs — promotional segments designed to look like objective news reports — into their regular news programming. This deception is illegal under FCC rules.

A series of CMD investigations have caught 113 local stations airing VNRs without proper disclosure. Free Press and CMD have filed complaints with the FCC, urging the agency to take action against all stations that have violated sponsorship identification rules. So far, the FCC has fined only one cable channel for airing fake news.

By disguising advertisements as news, stations violate both the spirit and the letter of their broadcasting licenses, which obligate them to use the public airwaves to serve the public.