So Much For Full Disclosure

Big media certainly has taken its knocks for potentially questionable ethics lately.  Let's see if this one makes the news.

CBS has an "exclusive news video" up depicting Burt Reynolds slapping a CBS employee outside of the premier of "The Longest Yard." The CBS announcer tells us Reynolds didn't exit the theatre through the front door at the films conclusion. Hmmm. And CBS and the producer are "looking into next steps." Fine.

Now let's look at what CBS didn't tell us. Aside from Reynold's joking and mugging for the camera, they neglected to inform viewers that "The Longest Yard" is copyright by Paramount Pictures and produced and distributed in conjunction with MTV Pictures and Columbia Pictures.

Funny, if you go to the Viacom corporate website you find:

BROADCAST AND CABLE TELEVISION

CBS Television Network

and MTV Networks. MTVN is also involved in a variety of entertainment businesses that extend its brands, including films, books, online and consumer products.

and Paramount Pictures, one of the original major motion picture studios

Full disclosure? I think not. You have a major news network broadcasting an "incident" featuring a star of one of its films hitting a producer in its employ on the day of the film's premier.

Yep. That's entertainment, folks. Um, or is that just CBS "Ad" News?

As they say, we report ... you decide.

h/t to Jeff at Protein Wisdom for linking the CBS story.

Comments

[David]

I am shocked. Shocked, I say! Using two different divisions of what is essentially the same company to generate reciprocal "buzz" about each other? Oh! Tell me it ain't so, Joe! This is utterly unimaginable! Never before has Mass Media Podpersondom (heh) sunk so low!

Oops! Forgot myself for a min. Incestuous relationships are Standard Practice among Mass Media Podpeople...

Now I truly see why I was so shocked: someone noticed the Emperor has no clothes.

:-)

[Preston Taylor Holmes]

Crap - sorry for those double trackbacks. I don't know how moveabletype works. Obviously. Feel free to delete at will, Dan.

[John from WuzzaDem]

The story is also obviously playing to people who don't have a clue about Burt Reynolds' "personna". I saw the clip and it was just a typical Reynolds-type goof.

[Mr. Snitch!]

Hi Dan. From the network's point of view, this is "synergy", the rationale for Pac-Manning up all the midsized media chunks into giant chunks in the first place. No way they'll ever decide it's wrong. Add to that the fact that networks traffic primarily in soft-news, infotainment, PR, hype, promo, cross-branding and other grey areas of 'news journalism' (if you can even call it that). So, is Burt Reynolds slapping people around hard news, subject to 'journalistic reporting ethics' (if you can call them that)? Probably not... it falls into the gargantuan slush pile of celebrity journalism and commerce, daily fodder for the Big Media Pipeline which must never, never, never run dry. I think folks more or less see it for what it is.

But thank God for blogs that take note of such matters anyway. And I checked out your Site Meter logs, looks like Riehl World is gaining traction. That must be gratifying.

[Mr. Snitch!]

I thought more about this subject. This sort of TV slush is the equivalent of professional wrestling. Most fans go into it gladly suspending disbelief, like any other entertainment. It's a sports soap opera. Burt Reynolds and that ilk is news soap opera. And like wrestling or acting, it's not entirely fake. Pro wrestlers actually do have to train, and they do get hurt doing their performances. Soap opera actresses who play slutty bitches sometimes really are slutty bitches. And Burt Reynolds probably is something of an asshole.