Single sponsors could censor entire television news shows to protect their products

Evidence

NBC’s lackadaisical approach was epitomized by the Camel News Caravan, its television news show. The fifteen-minute Caravan was hosted by a former actor, John Cameron Swayze, and consisted mainly of his reading out headlines and playing newsreels designed for movie theaters, until delivering his signature sign-off, “That’s the story folks,” almost the same one used by Porky Pig. The show was not only superficial but also subject to onerous censorship and direction by Camel’s owner, the R. J. Reynolds Company. The sponsors preferred upbeat news, and mandated coverage of football (for men) and fashion (for women). They also set out a surprisingly detailed speech code that barred any display of competing brands, pipes, cigars, not to mention “no-smoking signs” as well as actual, living camels. When, in 1952, Reader’s Digest published a report linking, for the first time, cigarettes and cancer, the ensuing media sensation somehow never reached the Camel News Caravan. As one writer put it, “What Camel wanted, Camel got…because they paid so much.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 443

Categorization

• SHARE: The detail that Camel’s speech code banned ‘no-smoking signs’ and even actual living camels from its own news show is a delightfully specific fact for anyone interested in advertising history or the J. Walter Thompson school.
• XREF: Connects to the broader chapter theme of sponsor control over content that Wu traces through radio into early TV; also resonates with modern native advertising debates. — connects to: Sponsor-driven television suppressed any programming that contradicted upbeat commercial messages — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 497
• SEED: Potential article angle: how single-sponsor funding shaped early television news content — the ‘Camel News Caravan’ as the ancestor of today’s advertorial and sponsored content.