You, and at least ONE of them, NBC News, is not even being subtle about it. Here's the plan their Sales and News Departments came up with jointly:
Every weeknight barring extraordinary news emergencies, the NBC Nightly will air a "Lifeline" segment on health. This will be either a new story or one of dozens put "in the can" by Robert Bazell, the net's medical reporter. On either side of "Lifeline" are COMMERCIAL AVAILABILITIES, which are called "adjacencies." An adjacency avail is one that the station or network can sell at a premium price to advertisers who wish to be associated with it.
Thus, NBC Nightly has come up with a nice sales tool - which they use to lock pharmaceutical advertisers into 13-week-or-longer contracts. Every evening barring another 911, Lifeline runs, and on either side of it are pharmaceuticals out the gazotch...the same spots night after night. To cement in your mind the fact that this is a SALES TOOL and not a NEWS PRIORITY, watch what they cover each night for a month. See if ANY of the stories are actually NEWS - and see if any are actually TIMELY. Most will be canned pieces that literally could run ANYTIME. All will be done by Robert Bazell - whom Tom Brokaw calls Robert Bra-zell because of his speech impediment - the same impediment that makes him call attorneys "ROYERS." Notice, also, that all of Bazell's reports fit in exactly the same cookie-cutter format template.
Each one opens with a shot of some disease victim doing some activity that's a part of her/his life. Bazell names the person, and tells us the person's problem as other footage rolls. Then, the victim chimes in with an on-camera sound-byte. Next is a shot of a hostpital/lab doing some kind of work and Bazell's off-cam narration says "new hope is on the way." Then, cut to a shot of a researcher saying something on-camera. Finally, Bazell does a "stand-up" on the street somewhere to close out the report on-camera.
That's the template. He could do a dozen of them in one afternoon with breaks for martinis and canapes and still never break a sweat.
And THAT is the bait for the sale of these Lifeline adjacencies. And it works, too. Every last spot is sold out for entire quarters - in advance.
But the money isn't all the advertisers have to pony up. They also must contribute REFERENCES - patients whose ailments the drug company is trying to cure. If you ever wonder WHERE NBC News finds all these people so easily, wonder no more. The drug companies themselves provide the names and numbers to call. Need a patient with liver problemos? Here, call Sally at this number. They call Sally and do a story on "new miracle research" on liver failures. The story is so undated it could run anytime in the next 6 months.
And they think the Catholic Church has problems. This little charade has been going on at NBC for a couple of years now. Actually, I would have fewer problems with it if NBC would simply tell us HOW they found each "victim" and that pharmaceutical companies are sponsoring the shows "in part." But this disclosure is missing - and likely WILL be for as long as they use this sales tool.
Michael