Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Nightly News Exploits Tragedy

Apparently, the Nightly News producers thought that Monday's story about the defective cribs that killed dozens of infants was the ideal time to reward some regular NBC sponsors with free advertising. Instead of simply listing some of the stores where the cribs were sold, the producers displayed full-color, full-screen logos of Target, Wal-Mart, Sears and K-Mart. The Wal-Mart logo even included the slogan "Save money. Live better". All together, these logos were on screen for 15 seconds. I'm curious: What does NBC charge for a 15-second commercial on Nightly News? Using a story about infant deaths as a way to reward advertisers is appallingly disrespectful to those families who suffered the loss of a child. Meanwhile, at the beginning of the story, the manufacturer of the cribs was identified on-screen as "Storkcraft" (one word), but at the end of the story it was identified as "Stork Craft" (two words). Well, which is it?

At least there's some good news. Now that Susan Boyle has released her solo album, we can expect Nightly News to once again cover her on a regular basis. When the Boyle stories from Sunday and Monday are added to the coverage she received in April and May, her total Nightly News air time is now in excess of 17 minutes. Congratulations, Nightly News producers. You're all doing a great job.

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