A Fake End to Fake News

[SOURCE: AlterNet, AUTHOR: Diane Farsetta, Center for Media and Democracy]
[Commentary] When the Senate Commerce Committee amended the Truth in Broadcasting Act (S 967), it weakened the bill. First, the revised Act drops the continuous on-screen notification requirement for VNRs. Second, it calls for "clear notification within the text or audio of the prepackaged news story," without specifying the minimum requirements for audience disclosure. Most troubling, it allows that disclosure to be removed altogether, following rules that the Act requires the Federal Communications Commission to develop. "The bill clears the way for TV news operations to continue using snippets of government-produced VNRs for [video footage] in their own stories, as they do currently, leaving the issue of how to identify the material up to station news personnel." The problem is that nondisclosure -- that's covert propaganda -- is currently the norm.
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/27314/