Mental health warning - the news is fake

Ok perhaps that should read "some of the news" and perhaps even "some of the US news". Regardless, allow me to introduce the latest innovation in mass media concentration: Video News Releases, i.e. fake news items produced by PR firms for clients corporate and governmental and aired by TV networks as real news.

From Sourcewatch:

Video news releases (VNRs, often referred to as fake TV news) are video clips that are indistinguishable from traditional news clips and are sometimes screened unedited by television stations without the identification of the original producers or sponsors, who are commonly corporations, government agencies, or non-governmental organizations.

The Centre for for Media and Democracy has published a report into the phenomenon with examples and analysis:

To reach this audience—and to add a veneer of credibility to clients' messages—the public relations industry uses video news releases (VNRs). VNRs are pre-packaged "news" segments and additional footage created by broadcast PR firms, or by publicists within corporations or government agencies. VNRs are designed to be seamlessly integrated into newscasts, and are freely provided to TV stations. Although the accompanying information sent to TV stations identifies the clients behind the VNRs, nothing in the material for broadcast does. Without strong disclosure requirements and the attention and action of TV station personnel, viewers cannot know when the news segment they're watching was bought and paid for by the very subjects of that "report."

It has been said (in a 1960s song by Gil Scot-Herron) that the revolution will not be televised. Evidently the counter-revolution will!