Oregon Media Insiders

In the Olden Days, it went well beyond product placement.

Here's part of the Wikipedia entry on the "Camel News Caravan" that aired on NBC at the same time Edward R. Murrow was holding sway on CBS...

"The Camel News Caravan was a 15 minute prime time American television news program aired by NBC from 1949 to 1956. Sponsored by the Camel cigarette brand and anchored by John Cameron Swayze, it the first NBC news program to use NBC filmed news stories rather than movie newsreels. In early 1955, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, maker of Camel cigarettes, cut back its sponsorship to three days a week. Chrysler's Plymouth division sponsored the other days, and on those days, the program was labelled the Plymouth News Caravan. The program featured a young Washington correspondent named David Brinkley. It competed against Douglas Edwards with the News on CBS."

That was followed by years of network newscasts with advertising logos like "Exxon" plastered prominently on the front of the desk.

And the level of journalism was rather high then, despite the ads, perhaps because Britney, Lindsay, and Paris weren't born yet to show us the True Path for TV news...