I read the book "Toxic Sludge is Good for You" fairly recently-premise of the book is that the so-called news is actually quite often PR-created pieces that advocate for some unknown-to-viewer point of view. The pieces are often sent ready to go or where a reporter can personalize it on the front or back end, or even edit it to make it appear the local news agency created it. All without a "truth in advertising" disclaimer about where the "news" actually came from.
I read, today, the article from the NYTimes which makes that point about the propaganda we watch.
http://nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/13covert.html?hp&ex=1110690000&en=13c49ccf73932e2e&ei=5094&partner=homepage - I also looked up the videos from the Pentagon/Army inspired news on the dvidshub.net website which have the following informational videos, showing that the news from Iraq, etc is quite often, military propaganda-
http://www.dvidshub.net/vids/0502/DOD_N05022402.wmvhttp://www.dvidshub.net/PROXYstreamingFinal.wmvWho's game for a month-long project of watching local news where we note the following? Who, what played, what anchor, did they attribute the piece's origins, along with a followup call to the station to ask about that broadcast's news origins. I'm interested to see what results we would get from tracking this for a month.