Who's At Fault If The FTC Is Positioning A Press Release As A News Story?
from the details,-details dept
Broadband Reports points us to a confusingly written story about supposedly "deceptive" tactics by the FTC in repurposing a press release as a news article for newspapers to run. Unfortunately, since the article itself isn't entirely clear, it sounds like the real problem isn't the FTC, but the newswire service, North American Precis Syndicate, that appears to take press releases and so-called "Video News Releases" (VNRs) and distribute them as if they were straight news stories. There are plenty of news sources that will reprint press releases (usually, though not always, making it clear that it's a press release). However, in this case, it sounds like (at least from the article's description) that North American Precis Syndicate reformats these press releases to make them seem less like press releases and more like straight news articles. So, this hardly seems like the fault of the FTC, but of North American Precis Syndicate and the news publications that rely on it for news.Filed Under: fake news, fcc, ftc, press releases
Companies: north american precis syndicate
