Ban!

One, Two, Three. In a weird sort of way, I feel for some of the people who work there and had nothing to do with the 'non-sting', however, I still maintain that culpability must be placed at the door of the Editors and Management of the channel. Anyway, I think yet another re-brand might be around the corner for this channel.
An anonymous commenter on the last post pointed out the habit of advertising masquerading as content - heck, I have one channel for that - NDTV Good Times. Anyway, it is true that in these commercial driven times sometimes there is a whole lot of you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours that goes on. If Reebok helped organise an interview you must put in the company's name somewhere if you want to get an interview the next time. The problem is that a 'Reebok makes great shoes' should technically go into a product section in the business pages of the paper, not in the Sports Pages, but when most newspaper/channel bureaus run like little fiefdoms with minimal interchange of ideas, this of stuff ends up happening and some interviews or stories end up reading like advertorials because the story has been poorly placed/positioned.
Of course, this is not to condone what goes on, journalists should have the gumption to avoid getting taken in by the fluttering eyelids of the PR girl and ask what they want to ask and write what they want to write. Does it happen that way? Naah!