Taking the News Out of Local News

The FCC took a break from fining people for cursing and investigated local news programs who aired video news releases instead of, you know, actual news. Two of the stations that were caught doing it were KGO and KPIX. Whoops. KRON did it too but for some reason isn't mentioned, but then again, nobody watches KRON anyways.

The main problem, other than being tacky, cheesy, and a complete discrediting of the news, is that the stations never let people know that they were video releases. KGO got caught for running a story on rental cars that included stuff from Allstate Insurance. The FCC claimed they could tell it was a VNR (video news release) because it had a cheesy background and everyone had 80's hair. And KPIX got caught running a story about a new kind of insulin inhalant that featured footage from Pfizer. Both stations said "oops, my bad" when caught in the matter and deemed them "isolated" incidents, although KPIX should have known something was up when the Pfizer footage they received was hosted by Troy McClure. You might remember Troy McClure from such public service videos as "Designated Drivers, the Lifesaving Nerds" and "Phony Tornado Alarms Reduce Readiness."

Oh Phil Hartman, we miss you so.