The Wake County Public School System this school year has paid $9,000 to WRAL for sponsored marketing stories.
The B&R has been wanting to get used to making public records requests. What better opportunity than when I noticed a few months ago paid advertising from the WCPSS on WRAL?
WRAL has stories that it lists as “sponsored,” which are more or less paid marketing stories. I noticed the following a while back from WCPSS.
- WCPSS’s latest magnet themes are designed to foster innovation and problem-solving
- How design thinking in Wake County is revolutionizing education across the country
I decided to try to learn the WCPSS public records request system to find out where the money came from, since I assumed it was taxpayer funded. The system is pretty simple. I specifically asked about the first article above (I meant to attach both but copied the links wrong).
“The funding source is federal funds through the Magnet Schools Assistance Program,” the district responded. That means local property taxes, etc., didn’t directly fund this expenditure.
They attached the contract here. The $9,000 contract was for the following:
SPOTLIGHT CAMPAIGN – 3 SPOTLIGHT
PACKAGES – ONE PIECE OF SPONSORED
CONTENT, CONTENT HUB TO GATHER ALL
ADVERTISER ARTICLES AT DEDICATED URL,
100,000 HOMEPAGE IMPRESSIONS, 100,000
ROS IMPRESSIONS, AND 50,000 IMPRESSIONS
RUNNING OFFSITE
Triangle Reformation Banner & Record 