publication or station. Quotations and information from other sources
should be added to balance the story.
A video news release (VNR) is a news release in the form of a com-
plete story ready to be aired. A VNR consists of video with a complete
audio commentary. A VNR can be anything from an interview with the
star of an upcoming movie to a medical breakthrough. These “news
releases” are actually produced by a company that wants press, so they
are a bit like commercials, and some companies spends hundreds of
thousands of dollars producing them.
VNRs are also produced for the Web and have been turned into podcasts,
which gives them a longer lifespan and makes them accessible to people
around the world. VNRs can even become news when reporters or colum-
nists report on them or write about them in their blogs.
When VNRs were first introduced in the 1980s, they were a welcome
novelty. Soon the media was flooded with many VNRs, and viewers realized
that these segments were not necessarily news but video segments produced
by companies rather than reporters. Many broadcasts no longer use VNRs
because they feel they reduce the broadcast’s credibility. Some stations still
use B-rolls, which is edited footage that stations can use to illustrate the
stories they write themselves. B-rolls provide pictures of news events and
sound bites from sources to which local stations may not have access.
PUBLIC RELATIONS 493
Dateline
NEW YORK, 1904—Former New York
Times and New York Journal reporter
Ivy Ledbetter Lee opened a publicity
firm dedicated to honest and truthful
promotion of clients in New York City
in 1904.
One of the first public relations pro-
fessionals, Lee led the movement away
from the promoter’s practice of white-
washing the public to responsible pub-
lic relations through a philosophy of
being open and honest with the public.
He is credited with having provided
the public relations profession with the
first code of ethics.
Lee saw his job as adjusting relation-
ships between clients and their publics.
The movie industry, the American
Tobacco Company, the American
Red Cross, Standard Oil, Chrysler, the
Rockefeller family, and Harvard and
Princeton universities were among
Lee’s clients.
Another contender for the title
“father of public relations” is Sigmund
Freud’s nephew, Ed ward L. Bernays.
In 1921, Bernays, 20, began to call
himself a “public relations counsel.”Two years later he wrote his first book
on the subject and taught the first col-
lege course on public relations.
Bernays, like Lee, believed that pub-
lic relations was more than just public-
ity and press agentry. He categorized
public relations as being in the field
of sociology rather than journalism
because, he believed, it had more to do
with influencing people’s actions than
with presenting information.
For instance, he convinced one com-
pany to sell bacon not by promoting
the company’s name but by promoting
the idea of a nutritious breakfast.
Bernays was one of the first people
to demonstrate that public relations
could influence legislation. When
short hair for women came into fash-
ion, women stopped buying hair nets.
A hair net company hired Bernays,
who then emphasized the use of hair
nets as a health and safety measure for
food service personnel and for women
working with machinery. Laws were
passed requiring the hair nets, and sales
increased again.video news release (VNR)
a news story in the form of a
complete story ready to be
airedB-roll
extra video footage, sent
separately or along with a
VNR, for use by television
stations in preparing their
own stories