Talk:Video news release/Archives/2013

March 2005 discussion

Lead in pretty good shape, other sections needing work. I think we need a section on Ethics of VNR use, working on that off-line. Calicocat 08:14, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The Public Relations Society of America is an industry trade group, inclusions of their self-serving statment in the lead, espcially in an in-line link which is eschewed according to wikipedia style directives, is obviously POV and inappropriate. Their statmentment on VNRs appears in the appropriate place within the article and maybe also be seen on their web site.

I realize propaganda is a difficult word, but when 20 government agencies and numerous corporations are involved in exactly that, its use in the lead of this article is both accurate and appropriate, failure to be accurate would be dissimulation and POV. VNRs are run without attribution, that is established fact, removal of that information is censorious and inappropriate. This issues present some difficult concerns relating to journalistic ethics which can not be dismissed with a few "should be" statements by an industry-supporting, clearly biased trade group. Calicocat 21:12, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

But stating that VNRs are propaganda is also a POV. GAO did not say that all VNRs are propaganda. They cited two specific uses of VNRs are propaganda. The reason why so many agencies and corporations use VNRs is because they're generally treated as a press release. Journalists can take as much or as little of the B-roll/VNR and use it however they wish - no different then a press release. Of course jounralistic ethics still apply. What I'm concerned about is that you have a very obvious POV about VNRS - that they're propaganda, that they're free from journalistic ethics, and that they're bad. Cultofpf

Thanks for commenting rather than just reverting. However, first, it's not two, it's at least seven and there's still more outstanding on this.Calicocat 14:53, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Calling a rock and rock is not POV, it's telling the truth -- please get the facts stright. VNRs are in fact a propagand technique, not all, but they nevertheless are that; failure to say so would be a lie. Do you want to include a lie in this entry? I do not. You make the claim that journalists treat VNRs the same way they do a press release, yet that's just untrue. There might be instances were a reporter quotes directly from press release, usually in attributed quotes (good, ethical reporters don't want pre-packaged quotes, good electronic journalists shoot their own b-roll.), but that's not at all the same as how VNRs have been and are being used; they are being used as a propaganda technique so that's what they, in part, are. Journalist who follow standard codes of ethics do not run word-or-word copies of a press release on the front page of, say, The New York Times. Now, saying, "it was just two" is kind of like saying someone is just a little bit pregnant. If two are propaganda or in violation of anti-propaganda laws is that still not propaganda? It sure is. Anyway, please see the GOA Report here which says, in part: Calicocat 14:53, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Would you also call a press release a propaganda technique? They contain bias and prepackaged points of view. Journalists routinely pull quotes from these releases without attributing them to the press release. Why the double standard? What I'm concerned about is that you're defining ALL VNRs by specific abuses documented by the GAO. It's like saying 100 men are drug users and then in the definition of men saying, men are drug users.Cultofpj 17:19, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What I'm also concerned about is that you have an obvious bias that is clearly evident in both the article and the comments. You're willing to use the GAO to support your view of VNRs as "progaganda" in the top paragraph, but you're not willing to accept a trade association's definition of what VNRs are.

Please refrain from calling this bias on my part. That's just untrue. The facts are the facts. If anyone is biased it's the trade association, PRSA. Calicocat 14:50, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Explain why you are not biased, but a trade association representing thousands of individuals is? Why does your opinion have more weight on this issue then theirs?Cultofpj 17:19, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It is simply untrue that all "good" journalists shoot their own b-roll. Most small town television stations don't have the resources to do that so they pull B-roll satellite packages shot by other reports, press pools, or VNRs. Cultofpj 17:19, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The budgets of local television stations are an issue for those organizations, if they think it server their viewers to use unattributed VNR segment within their news reports that is an issue for their own organizations ethics. Calicocat 14:50, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

But wait - you said that the VNRs are unbounded by journalistic ethics - now you're saying that it depends on the organization's ethics? Cultofpj 17:19, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"Seven of the eight VNRs include prepackaged news stories. As explained below, we conclude that the prepackaged news stories in these VNRs constitute covert propaganda and violated the publicity or propaganda prohibition because ONDCP did not identify itself to the viewing audience as the producer and distributor of these prepackaged news stories... [1] Calicocat 14:50, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

But again, the GAO NEVER says that ALL VNRs are propaganda. They say that these specific prepacked news stories, in their opinion, constitute propaganda. Cultofpj 17:19, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The article does not say "all VNRs are propaganda." And it's not just a question of "their opinion." Calicocat 14:50, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The article's lead does not say all VNRs are propaganda, but some, cearly, are. Saying it's both a public relations and a propaganda technique is just factual. Would you rather the article be a puff piece based on the defintions of industry-supporting trade associations? I don't think that would be valid or honest. Calicocat 14:50, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"By its own records, ONDCP's prepackaged news stories reached more than 22 million households, without disclosing to any of those viewers -- the real audience -- that the products they were watching, which "reported" on the activities of a government agency, were actually prepared by that government agency, not by a seemingly independent third party. Jurith Letter app. E. This is the essence of the "covert propaganda" violation -- agency-created materials that are "misleading as to their origin." B302504, Mar.10, 2004 (HHS materials) (quoting B-223098, Oct. 10, 1986)ibid. There's more, please read that document and there's even yet more on this to come and already on the record, more of which needs to be put in the article. Calicocat 14:50, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

VNRs are both a public relations and propaganda technique, just the facts..., not saying they are both would be a lie. Thanks for your comments. Calicocat 05:47, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Cultofpf, I don't think it's good form or polite to break up one my comments with internal comments of yours, my comment is not part of a threaded dialogue and in doing so you placed part of what I said way out of context, substantially changing what I said; anyone reading this is going to be very confused. I moved the text I quoted from one GOA report back to it's original location in what was "my comment." I think it would be more helpful and polite if, in the future, should you want to respond to what I or anyone else posts in a comment, you quote from the comment and then respond, for example. While "Calicocat" says, "quote the text" I think, "place your comment and signature and make that part of one of your own, stand-alone comments." What you did is edit my comment rather than posting one of your own. Hope this helps :-) Calicocat 17:23, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The Naive Perspective

I've never heard of [The Public Relations Society of America] but if there's a direct quote involved...

Possible ommitted attributions aside however, the use of the word "propaganda" in the opening sentence is not intrinsically POV. There was no implication that ALL VNRs are propaganda. If SOME VNRs are demonstrably propaganda, which I infer is undisputed, then the statement is factually correct and ideologically neutral. Arch o median 20:37, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Also some typos. Should be spell-checked prior to post.... Oh, and I thought the opening sentences were terribly long, but they flowed smoothly so maybe not an issue. Arch o median 20:40, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

VNRs are used both for commercial PR and propaganda, to claim otherwise is just a falsity. Removal of valid, sourced information is editing in bad faith. ~~ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Calicocat (talk • contribs) 06:40, 29 December 2006 (UTC).

The VERY Naive Perspective

This was stated:

'There was no implication that ALL VNR's are propaganda. If SOME VNRs are demonstrably propaganda, which I infer is undisputed, then the statement is factually correct and ideologically neutral.'

Separated into two concepts: a) that "There was no implication that ALL VNRs are propaganda." -and- b) "If SOME VNRs are demonstrably propaganda ... then the statement is factually correct and ideologically neutral."

In regards to the first:- A Video "News" Release by the government, which is ( as they, a priori, are ) intended to create the appearance of congruity for an idea which aids the government through causing an apparent or actual concordance between the beliefs of those in control and those being controlled is, by definition, propaganda. In regards to the second:- Is the statement that the labeling of VNR's is an ideologically neutral act? It would not be, as, through labeling it, one is categorizing it ideologically.

Please do not misunderstand, IMHO VNR's are an advanced form of embedded propaganda which elegantly use the psycholinguistic concept contained in the idea "The Fish do not see the Water". In Communication Studies, Propaganda Studies, even Neuro-Linguistic Programming NLP( which, while it is a controversial system, is based on common-sense "slight of mind" techniques.) the Sandwich Formula of: /true statement -> statement intended to be perceived as true -> true statement/ is being used here. Example: 6 o'clock news, tired Americans sit down to eat and watch the news. In the middle of verifiable and true information segments a VNR is placed, so the end effect of 'Rain tomorrow //-> VNR Information //-> Gas is up by 1 cent' is to believe 3 new facts, not 2 and one to question.

My 2 cents, Αγαθος και Σωφος, Σωφος και Καλος, Καλος και Αγαθος 17:02, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

If true:

"The Public Relations Society of America is an industry trade group, inclusions of their self-serving statment in the lead, espcially in an in-line link which is eschewed according to wikipedia style directives, is obviously POV and inappropriate."

Then this issue must be addressed. Arch o median 20:42, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

PR Newswire posting and removal

At 19:38, 30 August 2006, User:199.230.26.52 posted a fairly lengthy set of comments. At 19:47, 30 August 2006, User:199.230.26.51 deleted them. Since both IP addresses belong to PR Newswire, per ARIN WHOIS, I'm going to assume that whoever deleted the comments is (more or less) the same person who added them, and not revert the deletion.

I note that I reviewed the article and did some minor copyediting to make it more NPOV, included adding "citation needed" tags in two places where somewhat extreme claims (in my opinion) were made. I was planning to respond to the 199x comments here, following that edit, but will not get into a debate with an empty chair. John Broughton 20:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Unsure of accuracy of this article

I have a number of concerns regarding this entry as it is rather incomplete and therefore appears biased in the approach. For example, describing an actor as a "paid actor" seems inflammatory as generally speaking, all actors are paid - and this merely seems to emphasize the commercial aspect of VNRs 20:44, 2 November 2006 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Inbirrabevitas (talk • contribs)

Welcome to wikipedia. Since this is your first day here (at least with that user name), a couple of suggestions. First, please follow Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages in the future. Second, if you have a gripe with the word "paid", in the article, it's probably faster to just delete it with an edit than to post a long message on the talk page and wait for someone else to agree (and presumably remove the word). Third, please read Wikipedia:Assume good faith. If this article is wrong, wikipedia policy says that you should assume the errors are out of ignorance, not bias. Fourth, and finally - there are certainly a lot of poor articles on wikipedia, something that's inevitable with over 1,000,000 topics that anyone can edit. Some articles get a lot of attention, and often are then pretty good; many just languish. When you find one you don't like, please consider it an opportunity to show what someone with an interest and a constructive approach can do. John Broughton | Talk 23:44, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

John - thank you for both the welcome and the very helpful suggestions and clarification. Thank you also for the invitation to take a constructive approach and edit the article - I will do so at my first opportunity and return to delete this discussion entry. 67.84.141.130 14:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. A quick look at your edits seemed to indicate a look of very useful additions to the article. I'll leave it to others to do a better review. Two comments: first, please don't delete your initial comment (above), since it will make this section read oddly (and, if you read Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines, you'll see that changing or erasing someone else's comments - even if they were in response to what you just deleted - is quite frowned upon). What you might do instead is shorten your initial comments, and even change the section heading (they are your words, so those you can change), but leave at least a little bit of text so there is still a dialog here. Second: If there any sources you can add to the article (see WP:RS and WP:CITE), that would be great. John Broughton | Talk 20:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

John - thank you again for your very helpful suggestions and feedback. I have strived to make them as objective and useful as possible. I will read the section on sourcing to see where I can source where possible. Thank you again for your warm welcome and opportunity to contribute. Inbirrabevitas 67.84.143.230 22:39, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Previous edits to this article removed a great deal of valid, sourced information regarding VNRs. Without any reasons given in talk or issues presented, the article was essentially re-written from the PR industry point of view -- that's bad faith editing. Please, if you want to add to the article, fine, but to removal of valid, sourced information is a disservice to the project. Calicocat

Neutrality, Bias Discussion

this edit removed a lot of good information and readded a lot of slanted language that was removed for good reason. It also stripped the article of many references. Calicocat, if you're going to readd removed information, please make an attempt not to destroy the work of all the editors in between instead of doing a wholesale revert. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 10:29, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. It's not productive to get into an argument about which is an honest version of this article. If the current version is POV, then it should be edited to change that; if it is missing some sources that were in an older version, and those sources meet WP:RS criteria and are relevant, they should be added back. John Broughton | Talk 13:56, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I've reviewed the links and see that I did cut back a bit too far into the article's history -- to restory valid, sourced information. I, like you, do not appreciate hard work being removed for no good reason. I think this version, [2] is fine, the next version forward has too much valid, sourced, information removed, stripping the article of useful content. I'm sorry if I was too bold in the edit and hope to work cooperatively to make this an excellent article. 17:40, 31 December 2006 Calicocat

I don't understand at all what you're saying. The version you cite is that of December 12th, the one immediately before you made significant changes. Did you mean another (older) version "is fine"? Because you seem to be criticizing your own edits ("next version forward").

More importantly, if there is good content missing from the current version, please put it back in. John Broughton | Talk 18:11, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Let's get down to specifics. As the article stands now (04 Jan. 07), what issues of neutrality exist? I don't think the article lakes neutrality, so I can't really take the lead on the dicussion. Calicocat 06:13, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Night Gyr - it's your tag, so, your comments? John Broughton | Talk 02:23, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Calicocat - I agree with Night Gyr. I don't agree this is neutral. For example in the earlier version, it stated -

"VNRs are also used to distribute public service announcments [1] or where footage is not readily available to broadcast stations, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of a new drug, or medical device [2], or to quickly and accurately disseminate images relating to a specific product recall [3]

This presents the fact that, for example, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission uses VNRs for product recall.

This isn't opinion. It's a fact. There's no bias, or unbias in this fact. It is simply a fact. Follow the link [3] and you will see this fact for yourself - there's a VNR on "Mattel's Polly Pocket Magnetic Play Sets Recall".

To quote Wikipedia on Neutrality, "a citation tells readers where they can look to verify that the attribution is accurate"

The citation, therefore, proves this information is neutral.

The new edit also says all VNRs are proganda. As definded by Wikipedia, "Propaganda is a type of message aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of people. Instead of impartially providing information, propaganda is often deliberately misleading, using logical fallacies, which, while sometimes convincing, are not necessarily valid."

What's deliberately misleading, fallacious or invalid about "Mattel's Polly Pocket Magnetic Play Sets Recall", or "Fire, Other Hazards Related to Holiday Decorating", or "In-home Child Drowning Dangers"?

If there is something deliberately misleading, etc about Mattel's Polly Pocket Magnetic Play Sets Recall please cite evidence, proof - links etc.

Again, by not providing a citation that VNRs are propaganda, the description is no longer accurate, and no longer neutral.

Also, by deleting cited facts that have been contributed by other editors, Wikipedia's neutrality point of view tutorial states this is

"Information suppression A common way of introducing bias is by one-sided selection of information. Information can be cited that supports one view while some important information that opposes it is omitted or even deleted"

Hence, in this new edit, by deleting facts and not providing citations that prove accuracy, you are suppressing information, and introducing bias.

It is therefore no longer neutral.

Calicocat - I hope you can see why this article now lacks neutrality, and make the changes John requested.

Post Scriptum 19:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

How is it now?

Not much discussion for a while. Seems good so far. I'm tempted to pull the NPOV tag. I pulled the "globalize" tag, and changed the section title to read U.S. --Lexein 03:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)