In a TV news show, commercials are supposed to be shown in between news segments.
Of, if only that were so!
What many viewers do not realize is that the "news segments" are often just as commercial as the commercials.
TV News has been so polluted by corporate commercialism that it is worse than worthless. I say worse than worthless because many people still turn to TV news as a source of quality information and that is not what they are getting. So they remain grossly uninformed but are under the impression they are informed. That's a dangerous combo.
I am here to tell you that the current financial collapse has EVERYTHING to do with the fact that TV News has been overtaken by public relations lies.
Public relations copy is often the basis for what you hear on the TV news. It may get re-written a little bit, but it is still biased toward the company it was originally written for. THAT IS WHAT YOU CALL AN ADVERTISEMENT, NOT NEWS. Press releases flood newsrooms across America everyday. Press releases are NOT a source of quality unbiased information, but they are treated as such.
No one likes a Tattle Tale
The TV station owners do not want real news. Real news is usually an unpleasant truth. Someone is ripping someone off or breaking the law in some way. Few people want such unpleasant truths exposed. Certainly not the lawbreaker. If the lawbreaker happens to be an advertiser at the TV station, you can bet that the sales department does not want the news department blabbing on the air that their customer is a crook.
News flash! Your friendly local car dealer is selling wrecked cars duct taped together, but we can't tell you that because they'll cancel their huge advertising contract.
Back when I worked in TV news, it became common for the general manager to walk up to a reporter and say, "My client called me and said you were snooping around. I don't think you need to be doing that."
End of that crook story.
Or, the sales department would want the news department to do a nice puff piece on the client and what a wonderful service they offered. It became common practice for the sales department to include a puff news piece in with their package of commercials!
When I first got into TV news in the early 80's, I worked for WSMV-TV in Nashville, TN and they were a bastion of real journalism. They company that owned the station encouraged journalism. They hired managers who were fearless, dedicated journalists. The station's award winning investigative reporting went so far as to bring down a governor, Ray Blanton, who ended up in the federal pen for illegally selling prison pardons. Doing that not only took reporting skills, it also took courage to stand up to power. It took money and patience to discover the truth and triple check it. No reporter can do this sort of thing unless they have owners and managers who back them up and are willing to take the heat.
No one likes a tattle tale.
Flash forward 20 years and the same station is owned by out-of-town corporate owners. We're having a big station-wide meeting. The corporate news director is laughing at the station's journalistic heritage. "Journalism does not work!" he proclaims. He has "research" to back it up. Viewers WANT flash and trash, he insists. Journalism is boring! No one watches PBS, don't kid yourself.
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