On Friday October 26th, Yahoo Sports Blog, Prep Rally, broke a story about a video clip that displays a running back completing a front flip during a scrimmage on his way to a touchdown, however this same clip is now part of an AT &T TV Commercial, which brings up the question is Yahoo not disclosing its relationship to this commercial or just not updating the fact its part of a commercial.In a world where we are quick to print stories and speculate about everything its seems that Prep Rally is not disclosing its role in the marketing of this made for TV sports moment or just allowing the story to remain as fact when its clearly been seen to be part of a commercial. This whole thing screams fake, from the sports moment to the accounts that posted the video, yet the Yahoo story still is going with the information that they are trying to identify the player in the video when on October 27th, AT&T has released a TV commercial that features this video.
This hole experience screams Yahoo and AT&T not disclosing their roles in trying to make this video a viral sensations. From the fact that there was a Google Plus account created under the name of Stephen McMennamy to the fact that his YouTube account was create on September 27th 2012.
The problem with this story on Prep Rally is that either the author didn’t know that this was a faked viral video or they just do not want to disclose the fact that this story is part of the marketing plan and finally that they still haven’t updated their story to let people know that this is actually part of an advertising campaign. As big of a news organization that Yahoo Sports is the fact that this story is still being portrayed as truthful is still concerning and calls into question just how far news is from being controlled or influence by the people who advertise with them.
We would love to get your opinions on this practice and whether or not both AT&T and Yahoo Sports need to disclose their relationships to these faked accounts and videos or if the story was truly written without the realization of it being part of AT&T’s marketing plan.