While some forms of sponsored content blur the line between advertising and entertainment, there are some lines that should not–and cannot–be broken. Well make that should not, because the can is, alas, happening in a number of markets as product integration has made its way into local newscasts and other news programs.
As TV stations look to turn a buck, they’re capitalizing on interest from clients in getting their pitches–soft sell and otherwise–woven into the fabric of news programming.
For example, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Spanish language TV station KMEX, Los Angeles, has an integration partnership with healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente Southern California. It’s part of what the station calls its “Lead a healthy life, get the facts” public service campaign. But it’s more a public disservice.
Kaiser physicians are interviewed regularly on health topics for KMEX news pieces, news footage is shot at Kaiser facilities, and Kaiser patients and support groups are featured in news segments. Kaiser pays fees for the inclusion, an arrangement that isn’t disclosed during the programs.
Other examples cited in The Hollywood Reporter piece included an 11-day “Spa Spectacular” series in which 11 local spas were featured in the last half-hour of morning news programs on KRON-TV, San Francisco. Viewers were offered the chance to buy half-price gift certificates for spa services. Additionally Tourism Australia paid KRON to run a weeklong series featuring stories about Down Under in its morning news program. Tourism Australia bought traditional spots in the program while also paying an integration fee, and footing the bill for a five-member news crew to travel to Australia.
Call it an Estate sale–except in this case it’s the Fourth Estate in a transaction that wouldn’t have been fathomed years ago when preserving editorial integrity was paramount. But the ad industry isn’t entirely to blame. The emergence of the pay-for-play dynamic is symptomatic of what many news programs have become: entertainment.
Happy talk newscasts, team coverage of “the runaway bride,” freeway car chases/police pursuits, celebrity-driven fare ranging from movie reviews to romantic liaisons, features on the titillating instead of the intellectually stimulating, coverage of what the public supposedly wants rather than what it needs to know. Even much of the so-called issues-driven news fare takes the form of talk radio on TV, with “journalists” confronting anyone and everyone, generating controversy but rarely any meaningful insights, much less genuine illumination.
Sadly news in these forms is packaged entertainment, which dovetails nicely with product integration and other forms of sponsorship. But true journalism doesn’t mix with product placement and the like. The news shouldn’t be for sale–even the suggestion of impropriety is unacceptable.
While this publication has covered–and sometimes lauded–inventive forms of branded entertainment, there’s no room for such compromise in news programming. The ethics guidelines of the Radio and Television News Directors Association’s affirm that news reporting and decision-making “should be free of inappropriate commercial influences” and “should not show favoritism to advertisers.” The guidelines language goes on to urge that news organizations “protect the integrity of coverage against any potential conflict of interest.”
Clearly some news directors have ignored–or have been ordered to ignore–these guidelines. The ad industry shouldn’t be party to such abdication of journalistic responsibility.
Craig Henighan Sounds Off On “Deadpool & Wolverine”
Hollywood lore has it that character actor Edmund Gwenn--while on his deathbed--quipped, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”
The second part of that darkly witty utterance remains all too true today as Craig Henighan--a Best Achievement in Sound Mixing Oscar nominee in 2019 for Roma--can attest in that he had to grapple with the sonic of being comic for this year’s box office hit, Deadpool & Wolverine (20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios).
The degree of inherent difficulty was ramped up even further because Deadpool & Wolverine had to seamlessly bring together high action-adventure exploits with moments and dialogue that tickled the funny bone. There’s a mesh of humorous banter--a staple of the franchise--along with major spectacle replete with explosions, fights, an impactful score and off-the-wall musical numbers.
Henighan explained that among the prime challenges for him from a sound perspective was having to make sure every joke landed within the construct of a superhero film. The tendency for a tentpole movie of this variety, he noted, is to gravitate towards big, loud audio spanning music, dialogue and sound effects. But the unique comedic element of Deadpool & Wolverine necessitated that re-recording mixer and supervising sound editor Henighan strike a delicate balance. “You need to get out of the way for the comedy,” he related. The jokes in a superhero film become “a real dance” as Henighan had to establish a rhythm that did justice to both the comedy and the action as the narrative moves back and forth between them--and sometimes the funny and the high energy, high decibel superhero dynamic unfold simultaneously in a scene or sequence. The “sonic fabric” has to... Read More