Product Placements in TV Newscasts

KVVU, the Fox affiliate in Las Vegas (NV), following the lead of a few TV stations across the country, is integrating product placements into newscasts. McDonald's is paying for two iced coffee look-alikes (no, it's not really iced coffee) to sit before the news anchors of KVVU's news anchors. The station and McDonald's won't disclose how much the fast food empire paid for the product placement. But lest there be any concerns about mixing fact (the morning news) with fiction (fake coffee), KVVU news director Adam Bradshaw points out that the cups are put out only after 7 a.m., when the hard news gives way to light lifestyle news. "I stress the fact that it is being done on a program that is a combination of news entertainment and lifestyle programming," Bradshaw says. Kelly McBride, the ethics group leader for Poynter Institute, the nonprofit journalism training organization, isn't convinced. Product placement in a newsroom, she worries, represents the "slippage" of news into advertisement, a descent into a dark world where conglomerate companies control coverage.