[Infowarrior] - FW: Fake Television News - Trend Micro

[Richard Forno]

(c/o WK)

http://www.prwatch.org/fakenews/execsummary

Over a ten-month period, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD)
documented television newsrooms' use of 36 video news releases
(VNRs)—a small sample of the thousands produced each year. CMD
identified 77 television stations, from those in the largest to the
smallest markets, that aired these VNRs or related satellite media
tours (SMTs) in 98 separate instances, without disclosure to viewers.

One of the curious examples was for none other than Trend Micro

http://www.prwatch.org/fakenews/vnr4

A Fake News Report About Fake E-Mail
Software company VNR is nationally syndicated through the Tribune
network

On November 3, 2005, KOKH-25 (Oklahoma City, OK) ran a two-minute
story on "phishing" scams: fraudulent e-mails designed by identity
theives to trick people into divulging personal financial information.
The news report featured testimony from Jessica Sweedler, a Bay Area
phishing victim; Mikael Niehoff, a technology crime unit detective;
and David Perry, and a computer security expert from Trend Micro
Software. In no uncertain terms, the report recommended PC-Cilin, a
$50 Internet security program from Trend Micro, as "a first line of
defense" against phishing scams.

What viewers couldn't have possibly known is that the KOKH-25 story
was a scam in itself. The report was actually a video news release
(VNR) created by D S Simon Productions and funded by Trend Micro.
Without a hint of attribution, KOKH-25 dropped the complete and uncut
VNR into their 9:00 PM newscast. To help disguise the promotional
video as their own journalism, editors at KOKH-25 inserted
station-branded text overlays and anchor Andrew Speno introduced the
VNR's narrating publicist, Jim Lawrence, as if he were a local
reporter.

Along with KOKH-25, the VNR was picked up by Kurt Knutsson, a KTLA-5
(Los Angeles, CA) technology reporter whose "CyberGuy" segments are
syndicated through the Tribune Broadcasting Network on newscasts in
over 150 markets.