McDonald's Violates Standards of Good Taste, Not Ethics

(MoneyWatch)  Much is being made this week about local morning-show anchors pretending to drink McDonald's iced-coffee drinks on the air in a bit of tit-for-tat product placement. "Heresy!" shout some of the guardians of journalism ethics.

But is it really? The drinks, by the way, are fake. But then, so are the anchors. These aren't really journalists ?€" they may read a few headlines, but for the most part, they exchange inane chitchat, participate in cooking demonstrations, and vacantly smile their way through "lifestyle" stories.

There's really no corruption of "journalistic integrity" going on here, though the fakeness of the coffee drinks adds to the fakeness of the "news" sets these shows are broadcast from.

A more interesting question is, what is McDonald's really getting out of this? It probably isn't costing them much, but given all the negative publicity, is it really worth it to associate your brand with bubbleheaded morning show anchors? And besides, you never know what might go wrong on one of these shows, as this video will attest.