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Free Press: Fake News Invades Florida

This Action Alert comes from FreePress, the organisation exposing the proliferation of corporate propaganda disguised as news in the U.S. Through letter writing campaigns, they bring this important issue to the attention of the FCC and awareness to the general public. This time, the culprits are several stations across Florida where the problem is especially bad. These offending stations are named below:

Last week, we exposed a plague of fake news on local television stations across the country. This problem is especially bad in Florida.

Corporate propaganda has infiltrated TV newscasts in Miami, Jacksonville, Ft. Myers and Lake Mary.

These stations slipped corporate-sponsored "video news releases" — segments promoting commercial brands and products — into their regular news programming. These advertisements were passed off to viewers as legitimate news reports.

This deception is illegal. It's a serious breach of the trust between these Florida stations and their communities. Help stop fake news in Florida:

Tell the FCC to Crack Down on Fake News in Florida

By disguising advertisements as news, stations violate both the spirit and the letter of their broadcasting licenses. The FCC needs to hear from you about the problem in your home state.

These Florida stations have aired fake news:

• WBFS-33 in Miami
• WJXT-4 in Jacksonville
• WBBH-2 in Ft. Myers
• "The Daily Buzz" in Lake Mary
• 
  

At no time during these newscasts did the stations identify the corporate sponsors as the source of the footage. This deception violates FCC sponsorship identification rules and the broadcasters' responsibility to serve the public interest.

Send a strong message to the FCC: Investigate this abuse by Florida stations, enforce rules against the airing of covert propaganda and penalize all broadcasters that truck in fake news.

Tell the FCC to Stop Fake News in Florida

You can also tell the local station managers to stop airing deceptive video news releases. Visit our Fake News Map and click on Florida to learn more about stations in your state. Tell them to come clean about fake news.

Act Now!

Timothy Karr
Campaign Director
Free Press
www.freepress.net

The full report — "Fake News: Widespread and Undisclosed" — is available at the Center for Media and Democracy:
www.prwatch.org/fakenews/execsummary.

Tell your friends about this campaign.

posted by Annamarie at 11:54 PM