Broadcasters of Fake News Make False Claims about VNR study

BROADCASTERS OF FAKE NEWS MAKE FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT VNR STUDY
[SOURCE: PRWatch]
In an October 16, 2006, letter to the Federal Communications Commission, Free Press and the Center for Media and Democracy refuted spurious claims made by the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) and the National Association of Broadcast Communicators (NABC), a new consortium of broadcast PR firms, about the FCC's ongoing investigation into corporate-funded "fake news" on local TV stations. The letter reads: "The Commission’s ongoing investigation of undisclosed VNRs is not an intrusion upon First Amendment principles, as the RTNDA filing contends. Ensuring disclosure of broadcast materials provided by third parties is clearly within the Commission’s mandate. It should be noted that disclosure does not keep public relations firms from producing VNRs or TV stations from broadcasting them. What disclosure does is honor news audiences’ right to know who seeks to influence them. The RTNDA needs to understand that their members’ use of the public airwaves is a privilege, not a right. When TV stations turn their backs on the public interest to air “fake news” provided by public relations firms, they defy the spirit and letter of their broadcast licenses."
http://www.prwatch.org/node/5304