The Department of Education Is Not Alone

You’ve heard of Armstrong Williams and others who were paid by the Department of Education to promote their programs without telling any of the stations who hired Williams or the people who heard him on CNN and other media. So, it should come as no surprise that business is now using the same technique: hiring pitchmen or women to tout their products while supposedly providing impartial consumer advice. Some of the companies that have used such pitchmen as James Oppenheim, Corey Greenberg and Kathleen deMonchy include Kodak, Walmart, Sony and Energizer.

Most of these people ‘appear’ on local news programs, which in recent years have tried to become experts in consumer affairs. As with most television productions, even the local news has to be taken with a very large grain of salt.