COMM314 Does anyone really know what a VNR is?

This week in COMM314 we are asked to write a VNR for our selected non-profit group.

I had to ask myself... what is a VNR?

According to Wise Geek an VNR also known as “aaa B-roll or fake news.” This is where a company will carefully edited and package an video with their scripted message in the form of public service / news story and provide the video to local media for broadcasting. These VNR’s are not quite infomercials yet most often they aren’t news stories either.

Little did I know but there are actually several different types of VNR’s. At VideoNews Release.net they primarily deal with three types (1) Full, (2) B-roll, and (3) Evergreen. Now you may ask yourself what these one word names mean. Evidently, a Full VNR would be one that includes a produced news and natural sound package with additional sound bites and b-roll. The B-roll VNR would included only b-roll film that which is about the subject. These are great to hand out to the news media at press conferences etc. The evergreen type VNR would be a type of video that has some shelf-life and would be good for a long period of time.

Interestingly enough the Federal Government via the US Product Consumer Safety Commission actually has goals and guidelines for VNR’s. They list what a VNR should contain so that the average person won’t be scammed. They even state “Public Affairs has worked with a number of manufacturers and various production companies to produce VNRs for a variety of products. We would be happy to sit down with you, watch sample tapes, and explain some of the factors that went into the production of each VNR and the crucial elements of the monitoring report.”

What does this all really mean? In my opinion a VNR is a short PR message that looks like a news story.

What do you think?