Video News Releases and the Public: The Impact of Source Labeling on the Perceived Credibility of Television News

Observers of the television news business have suggested that public judgments of the credibility of news stories and the news industry would suffer if audiences knew that external sources routinely provided story content. An experiment examined whether on‐screen labels identifying externally supplied video news release (VNR) content in television news can affect audience perceptions of the credibility of the news and the VNR provider. The results suggest that news audiences might not use the presence of VNR content in evaluations of news stories, news programs, and VNR producers. However, there is evidence that news audiences are concerned about the use of VNR content and support the use of labels.