Amazon sent a script and video to US TV stations promoting its safety measures; at least 11 stations aired some form of it, and 10 didn't divulge the source
Numerous news stations ran segments featuring identical Amazon talking points — Amazon has been successfully feeding talking points …
The VergeNick Statt
Context & Ripple Effects
The script-and-video campaign lands a month after reporting based on interviews with more than 30 sources detailed how COVID-19 had spread through more than 50 Amazon warehouses while orders surged — making station-ready footage of safety measures a direct counterweight to that coverage.
It also fits a longer pattern of Amazon positioning itself inside local television: a planned free ad-supported video news app for Fire TV was reported in 2019, and by December 2020 the company had added live and on-demand US local news to that app starting in 12 markets. The same company is now both courting stations for content and supplying them pre-packaged segments.
First-order effects
At least 11 stations aired the Amazon-produced material promoting its safety measures, and 10 did so without telling viewers Amazon was the source — meaning audiences received corporate messaging framed as reporting during an active warehouse-outbreak story.
Stations that ran the segment unattributed now face questions from viewers and peers about editorial vetting at precisely the moment their own coverage of warehouse conditions is most consequential.
Second-order effects
News directors and industry groups come under pressure to tighten disclosure rules for video news releases, since the identical talking points across multiple markets make the pattern easy to document and call out.
For stations weighing participation in Amazon's Fire TV news app — which launched with live local feeds weeks later — the episode complicates a relationship where Amazon is simultaneously a distributor partner and an undisclosed source.
Third-order effects
If corporations can routinely seed broadcast-ready segments into local newscasts, especially from platforms that are also becoming news distributors themselves, the line between public relations and local journalism erodes toward a structure where the biggest platforms shape the news supply chain they appear in.
Sustained scrutiny of undisclosed sponsored content points toward formalized FCC-style or industry disclosure norms for video news releases, similar to labeling requirements that already govern paid political advertising.
The trend: Major platforms are moving from buying attention in local news to producing its raw material directly, while simultaneously building their own distribution channels for that same news.
Just got an email from Amazon's PR team with a pre-edited news story and script to run in our shows. They are selling this as giving our viewers an “inside look” at the company's response to COVID-19. No. Let us go inside a fulfillment centers with our own cameras... https://twit…
Looks like Amazon is pitching “exclusive” segments whitewashing their safety record to local TV stations around the country. Here's a script they sent another station near Milwaukee that looks nearly identical to the clip below: https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
This is only what we know. If you believe this practice is limited to these stations or this “amazon piece” you have a LOT of catching up to do. The Media is nothing but a controlled propaganda arm for govt and big business, MASQUERADING as “news”. https://couriernewsroom.com/ ..…
Any broadcast station that aired this deserves to lose their FCC license to use our public airwaves. Perfectly appropriate to air this as a paid commercial, but by definition it is NOT news, only flackery. . https://twitter.com/...
11 TV stations aired an identical segment written and produced by Amazon's PR team in an attempt to deflect criticism of their poor treatment of workers during the coronavirus pandemic. This is what folks mean when they talk about the corporate media. https://www.vice.com/...
Each station introduced Walker as though he were one of their reporters. He is, in fact, a “PR manager” at Amazon, according to his LinkedIn page. Amazon sent the footage out to news stations as a press release, along with information about how to best run the segment. https://tw…
this is how a real journalist responds to being handed pre-packaged corporate propaganda. pretty sad that 11 other news stations either fell for it or were too lazy not to run it https://couriernewsroom.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
when I did PR the local TV station literally gave me a form to tell the reporter what to talk about. of course there's great journalism in TV. but then there are stations and editors who just don't care. PR folks know this and capitalize. https://twitter.com/...
This speaks to so many things wrong with the media landscape all at once, that I'm not sure where to start. So I'll just share this and shake my head for a few minutes. https://couriernewsroom.com/ ...
It's very bad that local media is dying but it's very very very bad that Amazon is using the vacuum to foist straight up propaganda onto the (publicly-owned) airwaves. https://couriernewsroom.com/ ... Great work bringing this to light @bubbaprog
It's impossible to overstate how horrifying it is that so many local TV news stations would use an Amazon PR script verbatim when most Americans trust local TV news more than any other source. https://twitter.com/...
It's kind of stunning to think that Amazon PR didn't run the scenarios where this would backfire. Sending out these kinds of canned packages to local outlets is in no way new. But in a time of COVID and #Techlash? C'mon, man. Do the math. https://twitter.com/...
TV stations aired an Amazon-produced segment touting working conditions at its warehouses. Amazon told me this type of story, known as a video news release, isn't unique to the company. But this pitch and its script for anchors went further than usual. https://www.cnbc.com/...