I realize much of the media has been plagued with a serious case of Bush-nesia since Barack Obama was elected, but this article by the Los Angeles Times' James Rainey reminded me of the former president's use of "video news releases."

As Media Matters noted back in October 2007:

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Bush administration's use of video news releases (VNRs) -- video reports that appeared to be created by journalists instead of the government and, as The New York Times reported, many of which “were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production” -- was in violation of federal law. A May 12, 2005, statement by GAO Managing Associate General Counsel Susan A. Poling noted:

In the past year, GAO has issued two legal opinions on the production of video news releases (VNRs) that included prepackaged news stories by both the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). In both of these instances, we concluded that the agencies violated the federal government-wide prohibition on the use of appropriated funds for purposes of publicity or propaganda not authorized by Congress.

According to Rainey's must-read piece, the phony news trend now reaches into the world of local news sponsors paying for promotional segments that appear to those watching at home as actual news broadcasts:

The man [who emailed Rainey] referred me to a 90-second segment he saw after the “CBS Evening News,” wondering if it was legitimate news. It featured KCBS health reporter Lisa Sigell, interviewing the chief medical officer of City of Hope Medical Center about the promise of new cancer treatments.

[...]

Given that the “CBS Healthwatch” and CBS logos flashed on the screen, a viewer could be forgiven for thinking that they were watching a pair of news briefs. Both spots appeared at the end of the regular news.

But viewer beware: Not all that appears to be news is news as we once knew it.

The City of Hope website describes the KCBS segments as “part of CBS Healthwatch, targeted medical informational advertisements that have run on CBS affiliates for 12 years.”

In other words, the line between editorial and advertising had been obscured again -- with the hospital getting a nice chance to showcase a couple of its top people in a format that looked like news but was actually paid advertising.

I suppose this isn't as bad as Fox News building and promoting the tea party movement, but as media revenues continue to shrink for news outlets big and small, from print to broadcast, we are likely to see more and more of this as ethical lines are blurred to make a quick buck.