MEDIA WATCH: FAKE NEWS

PR Watch: One Step Forward (But Two Back) in the Fight Against Fake News

"Myself and others felt violated by the first bill," said Doug Simon, the founder, president and CEO of D S Simon Productions, a major producer of the faux television news reports known as video news releases (VNRs).

Simon was referring to the Truth in Broadcasting Act (S 967). In its original incarnation, this bill would have required a "conspicuous" disclosure to accompany any government-produced or -funded prepackaged VNR or the radio equivalent, an audio news release (ANR).

For VNRs, the Act rightly mandated "continuous" on-screen notification of the material's source, such as the words "Produced by the U.S. Government." Moreover, the Act made it illegal to remove the disclosure.

That Act was considered by the Senate Commerce Committee on October 20. What the committee passed, however, was significantly different. Even the name had changed, to the "Prepackaged News Story Announcement Act."

And now, Doug Simon likes it.

Boston Globe: AND NOW, FOR THE LOCAL FAKE NEWS

The mayor and city council of Newark, New Jersey "hired a fledging
newspaper called Newark Weekly News to publish 'positive news' about
the city - and will pay $100,000 over the next year for it." The
no-bid contract specifies that the paper will "generate stories
based on leads" from the mayor's spokesperson and city
communications staff. A senior scholar at the Poynter Institute for
Media Studies said, "If you are publishing government propaganda in
the guise of neutral, detached reporting, that's about as unethical
as you can get." Rutgers University journalism department chair John
Pavlik New York Times" target="_blank">told the New York Times that
the arrangement was "fake news." In New York, as Mayor Michael
Bloomberg "picked up the endorsement of an influential black
minister at a Harlem restaurant last month," some of the diners who
"were quoted in news stories" as "regular people" were actually
campaign volunteers. At least three people whose glowing quotes
about Bloomberg were printed didn't identify themselves "as being
affiliated with the campaign,"