By Amy Phan
The UNITY News Online

Check out the bottom of the snapshot taken of Jason Feinberg and Monica Jackson of Fox 5 News, a local Las Vegas news channel.

See it? Looks like a McDonald’s ice coffee, to me.

Says the Guardian:

Several TV outlets have begun to sell the fast-food giant the right to place cups of its iced coffee on to the desks of news anchors as they present morning current affairs shows.

Typical is Fox 5 News in Las Vegas, an affiliate of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox television network. Two cups of coffee, their cubes of ice glinting in the studio lights, now daily stand before the channel’s morning presenters. The presenters conspicuously do not drink from the cups, which is just as well - the cups contain a bogus fluid and fake ice to prevent the cubes melting.

Similiar deals made to place McDonald products “in news shows are up and running in TV stations in Chicago, Seattle and New York.”

Seen any of these product placements on Chicago newscasts? Do you think this could create a conflict of interest?