Local Broadcasters Forget Journalism Ethics, Air Amazon PR Fluff Instead
from the ill-communication dept
While US journalism is certainly in crisis mode, it’s particularly bad on the local level, where most local newspapers and broadcasters have been either killed off or consolidated into large corporations, often resulting in something that’s less news, and more homogenized dreck (see: that Deadspin Sinclair video from a few years back). Data suggests this shift has a profoundly negative impact on the culture, resulting in fewer investigations of corruption, a more divided and less informed populace, and even swayed political outcomes as nuanced local coverage is replaced with more partisan, national news.
The latest case in point: as Amazon has faced questions about warehouse worker safety during the pandemic, the company has been pushing local news outlets to carry a gushing piece of fluff PR loosely disguised as journalism. More than 11 local broadcasters agreed to do so, and the result is… well, see for yourself:
NEW: Here?s 11 local news stations just straight up running an Amazon scripted segment ahead of their shareholders meeting pic.twitter.com/wc8HbJT4ki
— Colin Jones (@colinjones) May 26, 2020
The spot didn’t just involve real reporters reading from a script Amazon provided, it included Amazon PR rep Todd Walker posing as a reporter during the segment:
“Each station introduced Walker as though he were one of their own reporters. He is, in fact, a “PR manager” at Amazon, according to his LinkedIn page. Walker used to be a broadcast journalist, according to his personal website and a sizzle reel he produced for his site.”
In reality, Amazon has come under fire recently for ending $2 per hour hazard pay bonuses despite being owned by the wealthiest human being in the history of the planet, something (oddly!) not mentioned during the segments. Nor did the segment bother to mention that at least eight Amazon warehouse workers have died so far during the crisis, resulting in ample criticism from employees about the lack of personal protective equipment and adequate job safeguards. Fortunately not everybody was willing to play along with Amazon, and some journalists were clearly disgusted by the effort:
Just got an email from Amazon?s PR team with a pre-edited news story and script to run in our shows. They are selling this as giving our viewers an ?inside look? at the company?s response to COVID-19.
No.
Let us go inside a fulfillment centers with our own cameras… pic.twitter.com/7mDk2xmf4O
— Zach Rael (@KOCOZach) May 24, 2020
As media has gotten more consolidated, this kind of fluff has proliferated. Under Section 317 of the Communications Act, broadcasters are allowed to air PR as “news,” provided they’re clear about where they received the original programming from. Even then, enforcement is sporadic at best, with the last meaningful action from the FCC coming in 2011, when several broadcasters were fined a measly $4,000 for airing advertisements without adequate disclosures.
In this case, it’s pretty clear that these broadcasts not only didn’t inform viewers that the “news” story came and was produced by Amazon, but they falsely introduced the Amazon PR rep as a station reporter. It’s also fairly clear the current Trump FCC won’t do much of anything about it.
While the failure of local journalism certainly can be blamed in large part on the failure of local outlets to adapt their business models, the industry is also the victim of relentless merger mania and industry consolidation, resulting in local broadcasters that simply parrot whatever script is handed to them by corporations, politicians, or the national head office (as opposed to doing quality local investigative reporting on things that matter). To cut costs, giants like Sinclair routinely shutter local newsrooms, fire local reporters, and replace more nuanced, non-partisan local reporting with homogenized fluff.
The resulting “news deserts” are often falsely treated as an esoteric problem with an ambiguous impact, but again the data is pretty clear that the end result is a dumber and more divided public, often quite by design.
Filed Under: local news, pr, pr fluff, propaganda, todd walker, tv stations
Companies: amazon
Comments on “Local Broadcasters Forget Journalism Ethics, Air Amazon PR Fluff Instead”
In the UK they started running adverts for Amazon warehouse tours prior to the ‘rona, after a lot of horrendous PR over their treatment of workers. I guess buying journalists is more cost effective and less disruptive than running a few warehouse shifts a week as Jurassic park with serfs instead of dinosaurs.
Re: Re:
No need to buy journalists, they do it at no extra charge.
When journalists decided (and J-schools started teaching) that their role was to be advocates for a cause, rather than to honestly report the news, any semblance of "journalistic ethics" died.
Re: journalism died
yeah, the Trump era unmasked the mass of fakers posing as principled professional journalists.
they hated Trump so much that they could no longer conceal their longstanding and deep political bias.
to them, abandoning journalistic principles was well worth getting rid of Trump.
Re: Re:
The same could be said of the other “side”, too, y’know. Or do you sincerely believe Fox News treats Democrats/liberals/left-wingers with “fairness”?
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
They treat them with the same "fairness" and "respect" that the liberals afford the conservatives.
Re: Re: journalism died
How deluded do you have to be to believe that reporting Trump’s own words verbatim is more biased than the constant lies that were spread during Obama’s term?
Re: Re: journalism died
Unlike the Obama era, where you had Fox News trying to create scandals for the entire length of both terms, their hosts organising political rallies against him and gave airtime to any and all conspiracy theories no matter how racist and utterly braindead they were.
Re: Re:
And when was that?
Be specific.
homogenized dreck
Assuming that local TV news has any connection whatsoever to professional journalism is a huge mistake.
Local news is in the marketing and entertainment business, not journalism.
(the national TV/radio news broadcasts are almost as bad)
TV news is 95% noise — nobody should take it seriously.
The talking head nightly PR show? Yeah, that has become very tiresome – I prefer to obtain news online from various sources.
Now there are entire thirty minute shows that try to look like the news but are only there to sell you something.
It's Spreading
Years ago, magazine content started to dwindle, with many pages instead being filled with mostly advertisements. Some of these multi-page advertisements, of course, began to almost disguise themselves as content, appearing more like a product review. Then the concept spread to newspapers. Now it’s up to TV. It’s the perfect scam, to let someone else do your work for you, and yet you get paid for it.
Was there anything in the videos that weren’t true? From what I’ve read, the content was true. Just because they left out information doesn’t mean it wasn’t true. So, as a viewer (and I don’t buy from Amazon) I don’t see a problem.
Re: Re:
Leaving out pertinent information is as morally and ethically bankrupt as lying about that info.
Re: Re:
Was there anything in the videos that weren’t true?
Yes in fact.
"Each station introduced Walker as though he were one of their own reporters. He is, in fact, a "PR manager" at Amazon, according to his LinkedIn page.
On a more general note there’s a good reason that disclosing that someone is paying you to say something is often required, and doing so without that disclosure tends to get people in hot water.
‘We investigated company X and here’s what we found’ is worlds different than ‘Here’s what company X told us to tell you about what they’re doing’. One of those might be presenting a biased image, the other absolutely is.
Re: Re:
They literally said, "Let’s go into the warehouse with our own cameras".
Also, if Amazon is denying the way they treat workers, and putting on a scripted show of "real average day at warehouse", the whole thing is pretty much a lie.
Re: Re:
One thing to keep in mind is that it is deceptive. You’re seeing measures in one handpicked building, while having it implied that it’s in your local buildings. That isn’t necessarily false, but I doubt it’s true, If only because Amazon tends to pilot these programs before deploying them widely, so there is a definite lag between different buildings, and any given building may not have the spare manpower to implement a program in a timely fashion, especially if in a location where contractors or inter building travel is locked down.
There are also multiple kinds of buildings, of multiple generations and designs, so conditions can be very different during normal operations, much less when everything is at emergency capacity, and there isn’t room to put up barriers because of all the product.
'I'm confused, are we on thew news or ad part of the channel?'
And like that, they’ve utterly destroyed their credibility and trustworthiness. Running a PR fluff piece and presenting it as news shows that they are if not eager at the very least willing to act as mouthpieces to large companies(and one would assume similarly powerful individuals or groups), which brings into question any other reporting they may engage in as people will always have to ask themselves if it’s just more PR rot.
Corporations, shareholders, and public companies
Amazon is a public company and a corporation. Its shares of stock are owned by people, none of whom are responsible for the corporation’s actions — unless, of course, they are a director, officer, or executive.
Whether one of Amazon’s shareholders is a homeless person in LA or a rich person in NYC doesn’t change the calculus.
Pretending otherwise is disingenuous. So back to the point:
Your shareholders’ wealth doesn’t in any way require you to do anything. Your corporate governance board, documents, oversight, and managers do.
Stick to IT.
E
Re: Corporations, shareholders, and public companies
I agree that his wealth is of little consequence to the story but … what are you saying?
Is his wealth measured by that of the shareholders?
Re: Corporations, shareholders, and public companies
That’s fair, I mean it’s not like the wealthy person in question is one of the people in a position of power in the company, and as everyone knows those running companies are incapable of doing anything that they aren’t required to do.
Re: Corporations, shareholders, and public companies
Please unbunch your panties and go back to discussing the topic. Hint: it’s in the article above.
Re: Re: Corporations, shareholders, and public companies
Well, that was illuminating, I had been operating under the impression that they just liked to be pedantic like a few other posters and hadn’t realized just what a colossal jackass they are, delighting in trolling someone. Auto-flag from now on it is then.
Re: Re: Corporations, shareholders, and public companies
hold a grudge much there thad? That was like 9 months ago. Dayum!
Re: Corporations, shareholders, and public companies
Shareholders get representation at the company’s board. They can certainly decide what the company does or doesn’t.
Shareholders don't dictate company policies
No. They don’t. They can get together and form committees and get majority votes and try to influence the corporation.
At the end, it is the management that makes ALL the decisions. If there is a majority (or plurality depending on the documents) of the shareholders AT THE RIGHT TIME (usually that is at annual meeting time, although usually the corporation requires that issues be brought up 90 days in advance or forever hold your peace.)
If you are a shareholder, and you don’t like management’s decision, you can try a takeover (hostile or not). This has high barriers to entry.
But no, shareholders don’t dictate company policies.
Ehud