Armchair Activist: Product Placement on News

I just got this bulletin from Commercial Alert. KVVU is doing product placement during newscasts. Shame, shame.

Just click on the link below to tell KVVU what you think.

Dear Friends,

While product placement hidden advertisements have long infiltrated network television shows, the Meredith Broadcasting Group has hit a new low: product placement on news broadcasts.

The New York Times reports that anchors on KVVU, a Fox affiliate in Las Vegas, sit with cups of McDonald's iced coffee on their desks during morning news show. Executives at the station have acknowledged that the McDonald's coffee is part of a six-month promotion.

Product placement on newscasts runs contrary to the ethics of impartial journalism and takes advantage of viewers who are expecting the morning news, not an advertisement. The news should be kept separate from commercial ventures and news anchors should not be used to hawk products.

Please click here to tell Paul Karpowicz, president of Meredith Broadcasting Group, to take product placement out of newscasts.

Sincerely,

Raissa Howera, Commercial Alert

Census Bureau Cleans Up Labor Day History

I just got this from the Census Bureau, along with a number of handy statistics.

Labor Day 2008: Sept. 1

The first observance of Labor Day is believed to have been a parade of 10,000 workers on Sept. 5, 1882, in New York City, organized by Peter J. McGuire, a Carpenters and Joiners Union secretary. By 1893, more than half the states were observing a "Labor Day" on one day or another, and Congress passed a bill to establish a federal holiday in 1894. President Grover Cleveland signed the bill soon afterward, designating the first Monday in September as Labor Day.

Isn't it cute? Here's one statistic from them.

There are about 288,000 moonlighters who work full time at both jobs.

Makes me tired just thinking about it.

Have they taken leave of their census? (I've always wanted to write that sentence.) The Census Bureau got part of the story on the origins of Labor Day right, but they left out that the modern Labor Day celebrated around most of the world is celebrated on a different day of the year. On May 1st, also known as May Day, International Workers' Day, workers commemorate the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago in 1886. Within five years the International Workers' Day was celebrated worldwide.