I just read a pretty fascinating NYT Cover Story on how our current administration is utilizing video news releases and and fairly extensive distribution network to assist networks and local affiliates, not too mention the American public in understanding current events. It’s actually pretty sickening and makes me think we live in a socialist country where news is fully controlled. In this case though it seems many stations are not even aware (so they say) of the source and if they are, they simply cut it out or re-edit so it looks like they did the work.
It’s hard to fault the government for wanting to get their message out… though the method is highly suspect. At least there’s a whole generation of people not getting their primary news from TV…