FreePress: Fake News Invades California

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Fake News Invades California

On Jan. 27, reporter Thuy Vu of KPIX-5 praised a diabetes treatment marketed by Pfizer as a "huge breakthrough." Bay Area viewers might be surprised to learn that much of her exuberance was supplied by Pfizer itself.

Take action

Last week, we exposed a plague of fake news on local television stations across the country. This problem is especially bad in California.

Corporate propaganda has infiltrated TV newscasts in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Barbara and Glendale.

These stations slipped corporate-sponsored "video news releases" — segments promoting commercial brands and products — into their regular news programming. These advertisements were passed off to viewers as legitimate news reports.

This deception is illegal. It's a serious breach of the trust between these California stations and the communities they serve:

Tell the FCC to Crack Down on Fake News in California

By disguising advertisements as news, stations violate both the spirit and the letter of their broadcasting licenses. The FCC needs to hear from you about the problem in your home state.

These California stations have aired fake news:

* KCBS-2 in Los Angeles
* KTLA-5 in Los Angeles
* KPIX-5 in San Francisco
* KABC-7 in Glendale
* KTXL-40 in Sacramento
* KMAX-31 in Sacramento
* KEYT-3 in Santa Barbara

At no time during these newscasts did the stations identify the corporate sponsors as the source of the footage. This deception violates FCC sponsorship identification rules and the broadcasters' responsibility to serve the public interest.

Send a strong message to the FCC: Investigate this abuse by California stations, enforce rules against the airing of covert propaganda and penalize all broadcasters that truck in fake news.

Tell the FCC to Stop Fake News in California

You can also tell the local station managers to stop airing deceptive video news releases. Visit our Fake News Map and click on California to learn more about stations in your state. Tell them to come clean about fake news.

Act Now!

Timothy Karr
Campaign Director
Free Press
www.freepress.net

The full report — "Fake News: Widespread and Undisclosed" — is available at the Center for Media and Democracy:
www.prwatch.org/fakenews/execsummary.

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1. Done, k&r

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