Letters to the Editor
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Not so new
When I was in college, I interned at a state official's office as a press aide. The chief of staff was more visionary than I realized at the time. Not only did he set me to work writing news releases that highlighted the public official's role in all sorts of worthy activities, he also taught me how to videotape the public official and add a voiceover. And we always signed off saying something like, "And this is (name) at the (state) news service!" Then we'd fedex the tapes to every TV station in the state.
News stations around the state, even those in the state capital, routinely used these tapes and never mentioned that they came from the public official. Oh, btw, this was all paid for with state tax money.
That was in 1981. I should've stayed in the fake news biz!