It’s one thing to pay your PR agency to conceive, produce and distribute a video news package to advocate a point of view, but something entirely different to ask a commercial news organization to do the same. Hence, the news that the EPA paid $40,000 to The Weather Channel to produce and air video segments pertaining to global climate change has shades of Armstrong Williams written all over it.
Some may argue that The Weather Channel is not beholden to the same journalistic standards as let’s say CNN or ABC News. For me, that’s a hazy argument.