Comment by BrandonMarc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BrandonMarc | Hacker News Reader

Welcome to the news business. Even your local TV station receives its news directly from businesses, who often send multiple versions of the script to fit different time allotments. This is where "PR consultants" come into play - highly paid networking people who have the inside-track to, say, Walt Mossberg, and for a fee will happily send him your story and any related materials in the hope he'll decide it's worthy of publishing in his brand. Whether or not money makes its way to the news entity, and how that factors into their decision of what to publish, is an open question ... I'll simply point out there are economic incentives at play, and leave it at that.

Macro vision ... Americans get news and updates from two sources:

- "news" entities like the paper, magazines, television news, and their related websites

- advertisements

Only in the latter is it obvious that the viewing audience is being sold a product. In the former, it's absolutely still true, it's just less obvious.

I've worked on both sides of this, in both PR and as a journalist. What you're describing is perfectly ethical - as a PR I, of course would send journalists specific pitches tailored to what I thought were their interests, and make sure that they had all the material they needed to do minimal work.

As a journalist, I loved PRs who sent me interesting stories pitched at my interests and publication. Yes please - send them in. That didn't mean that I didn;t then do my job; speak to competitors, treat the pitch with a fair degree of scepticism, etc.

What's being described in the article is quite different - deliberate corruption of the editorial process.

Getting focus on an area of industry / interest is 80% of the battle, especially if the PR subject has saliency and recency.

You can tell yourself that, but it's completely unethical by the news organization and thus unethical for the company to create the temptation in the first place.

When I worked in local news I received those pitches. How else do you think news about local businesses gets to a newsroom? Do you think a producer is calling every business in town every day saying hey, anything going on today? This is really part of the broader problem: people don't understand how news works, but are more than ready to hop aboard a choo choo train of tossing around big words like "unethical."

The copy that a business would send us rarely made air. I know, because I was often the person who rewrote it.

Example: At a talk radio station I worked at a number of years ago, we received a press release from a person who was protesting John McCain's policies in a very particular way. It was very positive, and spoke of his mission, and blah blah blah. We had no clue who this guy was, but it tipped us off to a great story; we didn't cover it in the news portion of our broadcast, but the talking heads that evening had a very good time pointing out how ridiculous it was.

This is how news works. PR helps a producer by bringing their attention to something, because let's face it, omniscience is not a trait of local news producers. The producer might help PR with a bit of coverage, or very likely doesn't. (The fax machine at a local newsroom is hilarious to watch.) The angle that gets covered is occasionally not what PR wants. This relationship is push and pull.

There is nothing unethical about 'call me if you have news'.

However, having pre-written copy introduces vast amounts of bias by shifting how people are thinking about an issue. Thus, you can't rewrite it without first being influenced to think along similar lines. Now, one option is a simple firewall that prevents the person writing the story from reading original copy. More effort in the short term, but companies would have less incentive to try and shape the news for free press.

Your case rests on the assumption that journalists are incapable of objective thought, when objectivity is a primary trait of journalists.

Nobody is completely objective, to suggest that is to believe propaganda over reality which is again the opposite of objectivity.

PS: Really, pink elephants, now where you thinking about elephants or did I suddenly change your thought process... It is possible to minimize bias, but failing to take obvious steps suggests they are not even trying.

And so they call - and at that point they give you their careful crafted narrative. Is your objection really that they supply it as text.

As a PR I was initially astonished that my releases would be duplicated verbatim by journalists - and yet it happened, so I was clearly doing both my job and helping them out.

> but it's completely unethical by the news organization and thus unethical for the company to create the temptation in the first place.

Sorry, I'm not clear what you are suggesting is unethical.

In the case of HuffPo, their writers contact businesses asking for money to write stories. The stories are not marked as paid features.

Not giving details on HN but happy to send a bunch of email proving this if you're from a noteworthy publication.

The government has been know to do this as well, pay the big three newspapers to run stories especially regarding foreign policy, it's just business. This is why 'don't believe everything you read' is valid more than ever.

[citation needed] - the government has paid newspapers to run stories that were not advertisements?

Paid for logistics for reporters? Paid for placement? Bribed? Care to clarify?

I tried to find the specific article that mentioned it but could only find ones that were vaguely similar [1] The gist of what I can remember is that the government (and entities like the CIA, FBI) would pay to push certain stories, sometimes submit editorials that would be printed regardless, etc... Usually to build support for foreign policy (push that the middle easy was bad, China evil, communist Russia bad), etc... mostly propaganda-ish content to slowly sway US citizens mindset. I wish I could find the article, I believe it was between 7-10 years ago...

Sort of similar to this as well [2] (very hard to search for 'government pays NY Times, Post WSJ' or 'Pentagon articles in newspaper' etc.... So many results that are not related in whatever search bubble google has me in

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/worldwide-propaga...

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html

What you suggested in your previous post is incorrect. You wouldn't have trouble googling it if it were true and known. Maybe you are confusing it with this change to the law in 2013:

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-domestic-propaganda-offici...

The closest thing to what you suggest (and it is not that close) is probably Judith Miller's Iraq reporting for the NY Times, but that's mostly down to her incompetence.

> You wouldn't have trouble googling it if it were true and known

I disagree, or maybe Im just poor at searching but terms like "NY Times, government, paying, publish, stories, CIA" I get so much non-relevant search returns its impossible to separate the whet from the chafe. It was also many years ago, so Im sure search bubbles these days will tend to return stories that are newer as a default. The story I am remembering is definitely different from the one you recommended. I wish I could find it, it was a fascinating read at the time.

Foreign Policy is more a matter of experts funded by agencies and think tanks (more political again) trying to shift the debate in the community.

Not sure it's of major relevance right now, when Trump does stuff that is not the common wisdom of the FP crowd, but normal behaviour should resume sooner or later.

Basically by being extremely cozy with reporters. Reporters who report on government happenings build contacts with people in government for leads. of course there is a quid pro quo in that the person helping them has their own motives, either on an individual (e.g. political) or government level.

If your government buddy in the State Dept. (who may himself just be a CIA agent) essentially does a lot of the "investigative work" on a major story for you by serving it on a platter, and there's an implied understanding that reporting against your buddy's narrative would end future help from the buddy, you're going to do write what he wants.

Well, you just backed from your initial saying "pay". That was a great concern, being "cozy", etc. is not so.

Note that these are two different people.

Why is cozy less of a concern? If you're in with the in crowd, you go places. That might mean socially and professionally. Both of these have financial implications, if finance is your main concern.

Cozy/informal incentives may be even more sinister. At least monetary payments have a hope of being tracked or spotted by someone. A wink-and-a-nod that in the future you'll get some juicy scoop or could land a cushy job somewhere else through a mutual contact if you run some story is pretty hard to spot.

All three cases (and more) happen -- and anybody that believes it ain't so, or that "being cozy" (which can make or break careers worth of millions) is of less concern than direct bribe, probably also believes in the tooth fairy.

Among countless cases, some uncovered, some unknown: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/09/washington/09cuba.html

It's no new either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

And not just in news either: https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/hollywood-and-the-pentagon/

> you just backed from

that's a different poster.

> being "cozy", etc. is not so

it absolutely is... "access" is a form of currency, sometimes an extremely valued one.

the impact of access is such that the behavior of mainstream journalists can be manipulated toward one's preference through reducing or restricting it (or threatening to do so) - provided there is sufficient value in said access, of course.

There are lots of good examples here. One of the one's that's more entertaining is the CIA's role in popularizing modern art [1]. Modern art's reception was unnatural and driven largely by propaganda. The CIA saw it as an effective weapon in the propaganda war against the Soviet Union. It was supposed to emphasize the creativity capitalism and the free markets enable contrasted against the rigid conformity and authoritarianism of communism and state controlled markets. Finally, Rothko explained!

Quoting the article, "Dismayed at the appeal communism still had for many intellectuals and artists in the West, the [CIA] set up a division, the Propaganda Assets Inventory, which at its peak could influence more than 800 newspapers, magazines and public information organisations. They joked that it was like a Wurlitzer jukebox: when the CIA pushed a button it could hear whatever tune it wanted playing across the world.".

This played in synergistically with the Congress for Cultural Freedom [2] which was another government organization acting like an independent organization, but was just a CIA propaganda tool. Anyhow, this stuff takes decades to be declassified. It should be interesting seeing things like what was happening behind the scenes to build up the Iraq war. The ironic thing is by the time that's declassified - probably in the 2040s - people will think that it happened so long ago that it's no longer relevant to their issues of the day. Of course it is, and will be -- perhaps even moreso than today. As the apparent desire for governments to gain ever greater control and ever greater power -- mingling with media (in the general sense -- not just news) in covert ways will be ever more part and parcel of our brave new world.

[1] - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_for_Cultural_Freedom

> Paid for logistics for reporters?

See "embedded war correspondents" from anything after Vietnam. Iraq 1 is probably still the war machine's most spectacular TV production.

Highly recommend reading Manufacturing Consent: https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Econo...

The government has paid TV networks to promote a specific "viewpoint" in non-news TV shows:

https://www.salon.com/2001/06/30/ondcp_4/

This is not how the news industry works, at all. Have you ever worked in media?

I used to work for a media production company that was hired by various non-profits to pitch their "story" to local TV news departments (nationally).

We would create a Betacam tape of B-roll, have a written synopsis and other relevant details, and after cold-calling news editors (we had a book we purchased yearly with their contact info), we would FedEx them the package of content, and follow up w/ an additional call after delivery conformation.

It worked well. Although this was some time ago.

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