ITunes

I'm not sure how ITunes and online music has changed the recording industry.
To me they appear to be the same greedy money hungry fatcats that they've always been.
They still release overpriced albums with maybe two good songs on them.
That was what they were doing before online music!
About the only thing I can think of is them now putting extra content and free downloads on their CDs or maybe creating songs for ITunes.
But in the end the good songs are still coming out 2 and 3 at a time on an 18 dollar CD with 15 other bad songs.

Parody.

I think parody counts as fair use. I don't think you should be able to sue over it either.
It's using something existing to create something funny and entertaining. I think if we do that then we're creating a read-only culture and really stifling creativity.
I think we should be able to poke fun at various forms of entertainment and various people without fear of attack or legal suit.
If we aren't allowed to make people laugh then it's a sad world.

VNR's

Video news releases are not always a bad thing but most of the time they are. VNR's allow for journalists to just pass the tape on to the producer as a story, by just adding in a lead in and an outro. This does however create lazy journalism. The industry that I know sends out a lot of VNR's is the pharamcutical industry. They use VNR's to try and create good press for a new pill. The problem here is that they will leave out some of the things a good journalist would not leave out. Overall VNR's are bad for today's news agencies and they need to realize it before it gets one of them in major trouble.

VNR

I do not think that VNRs are good for journalism. Just because someone sends you a VNR or holds a press conference doesn't mean that you have to air it or hurry and send a reporter. The worst is when you run the entire VNR, even the narration that came with it. I don't think it would be a problem if they had used JUST the video and added their own, well investigated and reported, story. Sometimes you just can't get video.

Video News Releases

I honestly think that VNR's are a joke. It's some dreamed up news story that in actuality is an advertisement for whatever company the news release is produced for. So to answer the question, are VNR's journalistically ethical? In my opinion, no they're not. News should be reported in an ethical manner covering any and all sides to a story and not reporting a news story on what company ABC has compared to what company XYZ doesn't. So no I don't like these things at all. They do make journalists lazy. It's a quick story that they can fill their deadlines with.

They suck.

Video News Releases suck. Seriously.
I hate a lot of PR because you can't trust it. They're trying to make their client sound good. They sweep away or downplay the bad stuff.
I don't trust VNR because they're not giving me the whole story. News is supposed to give me all sides of the story and keep me informed. VNR's are just giving me one side of the story.
It is lazy journalism and I think it's a crutch used by news broadcasters that are running low on content or too lazy to actually research the story themselves.
Rather than research it and present the whole story they just use the VNR.
That's why I don't like them.

They suck.

Video News Releases suck. Seriously.
I hate a lot of PR because you can't trust it. They're trying to make their client sound good. They sweep away or downplay the bad stuff.
I don't trust VNR because they're not giving me the whole story. News is supposed to give me all sides of the story and keep me informed. VNR's are just giving me one side of the story.
It is lazy journalism and I think it's a crutch used by news broadcasters that are running low on content or too lazy to actually research the story themselves.
Rather than research it and present the whole story they just use the VNR.
That's why I don't like them.