Should Local TV Reporters Disclose When They are Reciting Someone Else's Words?

It was something I noticed when I decided to take a closer look at the health reporting on local TV stations.

Often, stories would present sources without identifying where they lived. Or the piece would unfold over long minutes without showing the reporter with the subjects or at any of the locations.

For the educated viewer, these were giveaway clues: these anchors were likely voicing a script prepared somewhere else, using footage shot somewhere else. A few Google searches later, I found several stories where local health reporters had simply re-voiced stories, almost word-for-word, provided by news services such as Ivanhoe Broadcast News and Medstar Television.

Typically, the reporters don't reveal these sources in their pieces, which I think leads viewers to believe they are reporting these stories themselves. It's a practice TV stations have indulged for many years, but I've never felt it was totally honest with the viewer, so I wrote a column dissecting the issue for today newspaper.

I understand why it happens: TV stations want their health franchises to appear regularly -- usually too often to rely on stories turned by a single reporter. At WFTS-Ch. 28, health reporter Linda Hurtado also happens to be the station's 5:30 p.m. news anchor, which makes negotiating the workload a challenge. And producers have often written scripts for reporters and news anchors to voice.

But at a time when new outlets are handling more sources of information than ever, we'll have to be more careful about disclosing where that material comes from -- particularly when it involves taking stories wholesale which are repeated, word-for-word, at other stations.

Here's a story on the use of art to help those suffering from Alzheimer's disease that ran on WFTS.

And here's the same story on a station in Moline, Ill. And also the same story done in Orlando; though the text on their Web site is different, the video uses the same script.

Comments

[ali .t.]

dont tell other peoples bissness over live tv.

[Kara]

As a PR person and medical writer at a major university medical center, I can tell you that Ivanhoe and Medstar (and other services such as ScienCentral, which focuses on science news) report stories thoroughly, and are very selective about what stories they choose to feature. Their reporters often do more background research and preparation for stories than any local health reporter possibly has time for. They also often find a second source outside of the university or hospital that originated the story idea. (For instance, someone in the same field to comment on new research findings.) They may even commission informative graphics and animations that would be beyond the reach of a university PR office or a local station.

Quite honestly, the quality of the reports is better than most local stations can manage on their own. And local stations are far more likely to run these independently-reported stories than they are to run the exact same story (sans second expert) that we might put out as a video news release from our university. (Rightly so, even though I think that public-health-oriented university/hospital VNRs are more trustworthy than corporate VNRs could ever be.) The end result in most cases is that an important health message gets across to the public via the medium where most people get their news.

Do I wish that local stations would at least put a little "Ivanhoe" or "Medstar" bug on the bottom of the screen to indicate the source of the report? Yes. But realistically, it's probably not going to happen.

[Eric Deggans]

Good points, Andy. It seems to me that there is a fine line between things you do to either make the story look a little better or help the editorial process and doing things that mislead viewers.

Taken alone, any of these practices can make sense sometimes -- when a reporter has to cover two or three stories in a day, shooting a "look live" might make sense. But I think, taken together, they result in a process that constantly accepts misleading viewers about when and how stories are done.

And when the remedy is just a few simple attributions or small changes, it doesn't make much sense to me to keep up techniques which mislead viewers...

[Andy]

Newspapers and broadcasting have always had different ethical standards when it comes to attribution. The broadcasting attitude has been "if we're paying for the rights to it, it's ours" and no further attribution is needed. Lest anyone try to start a Good Ol' Days argument, Walter Cronkite didn't specifically mention the AP or UPI every time he did one of their "tell" stories. And they didn't make it a point of giving credit every time they showed a piece of footage that was shot by an affiliate or Visnews instead of CBS.

As far as what was brought up by "Former TV News Girl," I really don't understand why I hear so much gnashing of teeth about pointless live shots. Yes, many of them are pointless, but who cares? The idea that they take away time from preparation for other stories is utterly ridiculous.

Ethically, I'm a lot more troubled by the increasing ubiquity of "looklives." As the name suggests, these are standup reports that are designed to "look live," even though they're not. The reporter never says he or she is live and is never identified as such, but the flow is the same as a live shot and often includes the same "tosses" between anchor and reporter. The whole idea behind a real live shot is to make it clear that a reporter has the most up-to-date information. To fake that with a looklive is really pushing ethical boundaries.

[Mark]

So what? It's no different than using a prep service.

[Eric Deggans]

Well, in most good newspapers, there shouldn't be many such stories. And certainly no major stories handled that way....

[Former TV News Girl]

Unfortunately, Eric, this has been going on for years. A few other "tricks" of the TV trade:

--Networks offer generic :01 live shots when there's something big going on; meaning at 9:01, 9:31, 10:01, 10:31, 11:01 etc, a reporter will start doing a live intro to a pre-taped story. After the story airs, the network returns to the reporter who does a generic "back to you" close. In some cases, affiliates can request custom versions of these at three minutes past the hour when the reporter will give them a custom tag ("back to you bill and monica").
--Unless you're in a midsize or small city, your anchors probably didn't write the words they're reading off the teleprompter
--The unattributed health story narration you blogged about? They do it with anchors and national stories that either came down on a network satellite feed or were pieced together by a producer from wire copy and network b-roll and sound bites
--Live shots? Mostly a sham, an attempt to add "immediacy" and "urgency" to the newscast. They'll often occur hours after the "event" at the location and waste time that could be devoted to other stories. The reporter did their interviews, went BACK to the station, edited their story, then went BACK to the scene to act is if they have breaking news.
--Forced-present tense writing. This is also a technique some stations use because consultants told them it adds "immediacy" and "urgency." For example, instead of saying, "A local man is fighting for his life after he was hit by a train this morning," they say "A local man fights for his life after a train hits him." It often produces unnatural and confusing sentences.
--Those follow-up questions anchors ask after live shots? Usually they anchors and reporters worked those out ahead of time. It makes the anchors look like smarty-pants, but in reality the questions were picked by the reporter answering them.

I'm sure I'll think of a few more as the day goes by.

[Michael]

Meh,
How many newspaper stories are little more than re-written press releases with no critical questioning, independent sourcing and little thought?
Copying the work of a journalist who's already done the reporting is far less damaging than selling the word the State as "journalism."

[frank]

These videos are often worse than useless. They'll take the viewer to an unidentified hospital that provides some specialized service not readily available elsewhere. Viewers then assume it's their local hospital.

[dave]

It's not just health news and it's not just PR firms. The United States government trots out its own Video News Releases which are presented as the station's own news.

There was a bill introduced in 2005 to require TV news to disclose their sources for VNRs, but it died in committee.

[Jim]

It does verge into being unethical. Every TV outlet does it and they've been doing it for years. Especially health reports or business news. They'll take generic video that you can tell wasn't locally produced and do a voiceover from the station talent.

It's especially appalling how many resources get devoted to covering entertainment. Not to blame WTVT here, but they sent two ENG trucks to cover an American Idol finalist. What a waste!

[Joe O'Connor]

Good coverage of the topic. While the affliates generally deny the applicability of journalism ethics code, I'm surprised that they can readily ignore the general ethics of plagiarism. Isn't their practice analogous to paying someone else to do a term paper and then submitting it as one's own work?

I suspect the real kernel of the practice isn't a reluctance to provide proper citations but rather one of marketing: The desire of local affliates to promote their "localness" in a competitive market.

Of course the goal for affiliates is to retain viewers and having a local identity is important. Implying that stories are generated locally suggests that the station's news staff has more local presence than it actually does. Also, giving more air time to affiliate staff--even if just reading scripts--provides more brand familiarity. Without that familiarity and a feeling of local connection, a local affiliate might seem like just another cable news channel.

BTW: I don't know if this practice is still employed but I used to detect another trait of stories wrapped as though a local station was responsible for origination. In cases of a live remote for something with regional or national interest, a news anchor would intro the story and the remote, the remote reporter would do the stand-up and then close with "Back to you" or "Back you in the studio"--without mentioning any anchor's name or the name of the local affilate.

[Chuck Welch]

TV stations have done this for years. At least long ago they would just take the idea. They'd at least write their own words and interview local experts.

Now, as you say, they just read someone else's words as their own.

Of course they should run a disclaimer. What would be the fallout if you took a media column from a reporter in Dallas and put your name on it?

Exactly.