Farsetta, Diane, and Daniel Price. “Fake TV news: widespread and undisclosed: a multimedia report on television newsrooms' use of material provided by PR firms on behalf of paying clients.” Center for Media and Democracy, April 6, 2006. (This report is also available in Portable Document Format.)

Summary: The authors tracked the use of thirty-six “video news releases” -- canned video segments produced by public-relations teams, typically for large corporations -- between June 2005 and March 2006, and documented eighty-seven instances in which they were shown on broadcast television, by sixty-nine different stations. In none of these instances did the station identify the corporation that paid for the production of the segment. In every case, the station that showed the segment imposed its own graphics, in order to lead the viewer to believe that the segment was locally produced; more often than not, a reporter from the local station furthered the deception by re-recording the voice-over narration. The stations seldom verified the assertions made in the segments or added any accompanying information whatever.

Since several thousand video news releases are produced and distributed every year, it is likely that the cases collected in this report are only the tip of the iceberg.