Local News Stations Run Propaganda Segment Scripted and Produced by Amazon (vice.com) 61
Local news stations across the U.S. aired a segment produced and scripted by Amazon which touts the company's role in delivering essential groceries and cleaning products during the COVID-19 pandemic, and its ability to do so while "keeping its employees safe and healthy." From a report: The segment, which was aired by at least 11 local TV stations, and which was introduced with a script written by Amazon and recited verbatim by news anchors, presents a fawning picture of Amazon, which has struggled to deliver essential items during the pandemic, support the sellers that rely on its platform, and provide its workers with the necessary protective equipment. Each anchor introduces the script then throws to an Amazon-produced look "inside" an Amazon fulfillment center, which is narrated by Amazon spokesperson Todd Walker: "Millions of Americans staying at home are relying on Amazon to deliver essentials like groceries and cleaning products during the COVID-19 outbreak. For the first time we're getting a glimpse *inside* Amazon's fulfillment centers to see just how the company is keeping its employees safe and healthy.. While delivering packages to your doorstep. Todd Walker takes us inside." The segment features interviews with Amazon employees who profess to be dedicated to their job.
Not just Amazon (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Not just Amazon (Score:1, Troll)
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All "news" is fake news. And no news is good news.
(I only wish that those spreading "the good news" would realize that and keep quiet.)
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If you don't read the news, you're uninformed.
If you do read the news, you're misinformed.
(solution: aggregate and connect your own dots, rather than nod and parrot a source)
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If you see a "News Story" ... it's a press release... and... advertising to boot.
It may be that the words I omitted from your quote were propaganda you didn't even know you were repeating. Something to think about.
Re:Not just Amazon (Score:4, Insightful)
If you see a "News Story" ... it's a press release... and... advertising to boot.
It may be that the words I omitted from your quote were propaganda you didn't even know you were repeating. Something to think about.
Details. I think my post was quite clear and didn't need any editing.
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LOL!
It might be something to think about, but how likely is that??!
Re:Not just Amazon (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Not just Amazon (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes and no.
"Media is just an arm of those in power"
That's a no. It's not "just" an arm of those in power and not all news media are owned by the powerful. There's a great deal of genuine journalism out there and that's why you hear about important shit going down. Media can be abused-- it has been and continues to be abused, but that doesn't mean that the entirety of journalism is a corrupt means to control the masses.
"...owned by the same people that "lobby" politicians."
That's true. But many, many people lobby politicians. *I* lobby politicians by meeting with them, writing letters, and advising them as I see fit. I'm not a 1%er. I'm not even a 20%er.
Call out Sinclair and the other news media organizations who blindly publish press releases, but don't paint all journalism with the same brush. Pushing such an idea encourages people to fall to conspiracy theory and trust their imagination over experts.
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Not really news, is it? (Score:2)
The "news" has been this way for a long time. What is surprising is that people don't already know this.
Not just corporations (Score:2)
Political action committees, tourism boards, governments, activist groups - nearly everyone does this. There are PR companies who specialize in these pre-packaged segments. The slickest packages have "interview" segments, where they send you a digitized background and script so your local reporter can "interview" a pre-recorded subject in the piece. If the organization has enough money, they'll pay to have reporter fly out, usually somewhere nice, to do a live interview, in exchange for a free weekend in Mi
There's a key difference (Score:1)
Re:There's a key difference (Score:5, Informative)
...virtually all local is owned by one company, Sinclair Media [duckduckgo.com]
LOL no, all local media is not owned by one company - "virtually" or otherwise. The top five largest media companies in the US own about 37% of local TV stations [pewresearch.org] in the country.
You're just using your trademark hyperbole/sensationalism to rouse the rabble around here.
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This has become SOP since the beginning of the Iraq slaughter, when networks started putting out Pentagon press releases as though they were actual new stories. It didn't take long before corporations decided to follow suit.
What's funny to me is that most of the same people who are complaining about this are the same ones who were complaining that Amazon wasn't protecting its Fulfillment Center workers, in spite of the links that I posted detailing some of the steps that they have spent $800 million on to
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And if you a "New Story" that paints a company in a bad light, it's a press release from that company's competitors...
Re: Not just Amazon (Score:2)
News agencies are fined by the FCC every time they do this but the fine is so small in comparison to the advertising revenue generated/paid by said company, the News agency doesn't give a shit and continues to do it because of the $$$.
it's pretty easy to spot these days. ex. ever seen a product segment not inside the studio but "on location"?
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is it cyberpunk for corps to rule us? (Score:1)
This is one of the horrors in many dystopian novels. It's also not new.
Corporate owned news networks (Score:2)
Copy & Paste Journalism (Score:2)
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NEWS has always been like this (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the way of the world!
And ever since writing was invented!
Newsroom with 30 minutes to fill use pre-written scripts all the time.
News Anchors (?) read pre-written scripts all the time.
Newspapers with 30 pages to fill use pre-written articles all the time.
Programmers use pre-written libraries all the time.
Programmers use Open Source all the times.
(Who wants to re-write the print() function every time; who has the time?)
Lawyers, secretaries,politicians use pre-written "boilerplate" all the time.
Preachers preach pre-written sermons and lessons all the time.
Teachers, instructors, professors use pre-written lessons all the time.
PBS "beg-athons" presenters use pre-written descriptions all the time.
Why is this "news", a story, or surprising?
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You must be quite young. No news has not "always" been like this. There was a time where news media especially local ones were independent and did actual reporting rather than reading a corporate statement. Back then those 30 minutes pre-written scripts were written by what we used to call journalists and you'd never see two different anchors reading the same script.
Lawyers, secretaries,politicians use pre-written "boilerplate" all the time.
Preachers preach pre-written sermons and lessons all the time.
Teachers, instructors, professors use pre-written lessons all the time.
PBS "beg-athons" presenters use pre-written descriptions all the time.
Why is this "news", a story, or surprising?
With those statements it's clear that you fundamentally don't seem to understand what this story is about. Given your focus on the idea of some
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How far back are we talking? The Associated Press publishes stories that are redistributed without modification all the time.(And they have been doing this for over 100 years according to wikipedia.) There are other outlets that do this as well and Local stations who are affiliated with these entities can choose to include these stories in their newscasts. I worked at a TV station in the 90s and it was a Headline News affiliated station and we would run Headline News 'packages' all the time, all the while b
Re: NEWS has always been like this (Score:3)
it's the social engineering aspect of it all that creates problems for the sake of revenue. over time this kind of subversive content manipulates the population without them knowing it.
many have hit a fatigue point and I think it's a large reason the lack of trust in information has taken hold but ironically enough people will still eat up other spoon fed news stor
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Sorry for the confusion - I wasn't saying that all journalism has always been shared from a few sources. Merely that it is not uncommon for media outlets (newspapers, radio stations, tv stations etc) to use canned stories from 'the wire' to fill holes and for some national events. I recall stories about space shuttles, holidays, technology advancements and things of this nature being commonplace in newscasts because of their general relevance. Every media outlet in the world can't have individually covered
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Because it's Amazon. The powered want to influence you against another powered.
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Wow!
This is the way of the world!
And ever since writing was invented!
Newsroom with 30 minutes to fill use pre-written scripts all the time.
News Anchors (?) read pre-written scripts all the time.
Newspapers with 30 pages to fill use pre-written articles all the time.
Programmers use pre-written libraries all the time.
Programmers use Open Source all the times.
No absolutely not. (Re)use of scripts is not the issue. It's the failure to properly cite sources. Plagiarism is unacceptable.
It's unacceptable for a programmer to take credit for other peoples work. It's equally unacceptable for news casts to parrot scripts as if they are their own when in fact they are written by the very company they are reporting on. This behavior is dishonest and unacceptable.
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They've been doing this for almost two decades now. The Pentagon started it, demanding that if media companies wanted to "In Bed" their people with the troops then they needed to present military press releases as though they were actual new articles. The corporations just took the idea and ran with it.
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You made this claim (at least) twice on this page already — without citing any evidence.
Could you, please, link to what you're talking about? Thanks.
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Memory. There were a lot of us who were outraged about the unblinking acceptance of and parroting of blatant propaganda by the media. Probably the best example is the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. Check out how it was presented in the press and then look at the few wide-angle shots of what was actually happening. IIRC CNN was the first of the networks to read a Pentagon-written press release as though it were an original story, but the others were quick to follow suit and in excha
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Memories are unreliable, and the "unblinking acceptance" — whether or not it really existed — is not evidence of the government demanding it.
You made a very specific allegation:
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You're welcomed to go back and look at the very few progressive web sites that still have records of their articles from 19 years ago. If you don't remember the controversies surrounding the embedding of reporters with the troops then you probably thought it was business as usual, which it absolutely was not.
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This was your second opportunity to present evidence in support of your claim, and you didn't. It is now safe to conclude, the claim is bullshit — like most of the statements coming from Illiberals.
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They've been doing this for almost two decades now.
I don't give a fuck if they've been doing it for almost two centuries. It justifies nothing. It changes nothing. It's unethical and unacceptable behavior.
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Absolutely agree.
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Yes, always this way, but... There is other stuff happening during the news hour that should be there, and is usually there in more reputable services. Ie, actual news stories. The other stuff is there to fill in the time, otherwise after 10 minutes on some days you'd have the anchors saying "well, I think we've run out of actual news, so we'll just play some music to fill up the time now".
The real snag comes with 24 hours news channels, they have to fill in that time with... stuff. The top of the hour
There are reasons I don't watch TV news (Score:3)
You know what TV is (Score:2)
Once again (Score:3)
Are all the people who are "outraged" this took place going to stop using Amazon? Have they heard about the Amazon warehouse workers who keep dying but Amazon won't report?
For all the talk we hear about how bad Amazon is, how many fake products it sells, how it favors certain sellers over others (itself included), how little it pays its employees, how it asked the public to fund employee sick leave, I don't see people stop using them.
I guess it's easier to write out ones umbrage than it is to do anything about it.
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Well I will be in a minority but I stopped using Amazon 3 years ago for two main reasons:
Social: they treat workers badly and leech off the community without contributing back (happy to use infrastructure, receive police, fire services, work with courts... but weasel out of taxes that you & I would have no choice but to pay)
Selfish: Amazon gave me atrocious customer service and again managed to wriggle out of "Section 75" protections, leaving me over GBP 150 (approx USD 180) out of pocket. Even without
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Of course they will keep buying from Amazon. It's convenient.
Just like how most of the anti-oil-industry protestors have wardrobes filled with synthetic clothing instead items made from only cotton, hemp, and animal hides. Convenience and comfort, and it's only bad when someone else does it.
To me, Amazon and online shopping is a place to buy something you can't find locally.
Bezos becomes $20B wealthier every month.
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For all your rhetoric, I dare you to examine the steps that every other major package distributor in the country has and compare them to the $800 million that Amazon has spent so far. Walmart, Target, UPS and FedEx combined haven't taken the steps they have. Warehouse work sucks (I've done it) the Amazon FCs are one of the least-sucky and best paying of all the major operators which is why there are several thousand people who come back to work the Christmas rush every year. (Yes, I work at Amazon, but i
John Oliver's fault (Score:2)
Amazon did a good job (Score:2)
When the shops ran out of everything I brought masks, hand soap, cleaning stuff, hand sanitizer all on amazon. Amazon saved me many trips to the shops for essentials. Maybe amazon sucked elsewhere but for me they did great.
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Written by Vice (Score:3)
A Disney owned company that also owns ABC news and a direct competitor to Amazon and Bezos who owns the Washington Post.
Amazon, CCP any (Score:2)
The number of journalist working in the media is dwindling. Now most are just propagandist.
That is IF the provider of the story(propaganda) fits the Anti-America, Pro-China, Anti-Trump narrative the media is pounding over and over.
Today's media, the last place one goes for anything truthful.
Just my 2 cents
Advertising (Score:2)
The Power of Amazon is Unbelievable. (Score:2)
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Not surprised! (Score:1)
The New York Times ran pro-oil and anti-climate change propaganda ads in their news paper for decades. Why? Money.
They also did some fantastic subsequent reporting about the role of ExxonMobil and the other fossil fuel corporations (Shell, BP, etc) in covering up what they knew about the very real risk of climate change (research dating back to the 1950s!) That doesn't entirely get them off the hook, though.
Morale: Blame corporations like Amazon and ExxonMobil, but keep in mind that the media is also run by
How is this not "sponsored messaging" as per FTC? (Score:1)
Shouldn't there be a big disclaimer plastered on screen that this is a "sponsored message"?
I recall that the FTC flipped shit over YouTubers not disclosing that sort of thing, hence the various overlays and disclaimers that are now required during ad breaks, etc.
This is extremely dangerous to our democracy (Score:2)