Is it journalism or advertising?

As local tv stations search for new ways to cut their production costs, it's hard to tell anymore.
Each year, thousands of such VNRs are distributed by corporations, government agencies, non-profit organizations and even members of Congress who have discovered it's easier to manage the news when you actually produce it yourself. Thus the ever-growing deluge of expensively-produced, news-like video reports crafted, often by ex-journalists, to look and sound like actual telejournalism.

Also see Stauber's book (not available at NOPL)