Airing infomercials pretending to be news is disgustingly common, as I found out from the book “Toxic Sludge is Good for You.”, published in 2002. Somehow I doubt the situation has improved in the last 17 years.
I think the Taco Bell story could be considered as business news, although I know that’s quite a stretch as I can’t imagine most local TV stations have a full time business reporter. I assume the person who reports on the stock market closing numbers is probably the reporter that might do a little trading and kinda knows the difference between the Dow Jones and Deacon Jones.
It’s not limited to the USA, the Gregg’s vegan sausage roll was covered extensively in the UK news.
I want to point out this isn’t limited to just TV. Radio people drop in “ad libs” that come straight from promotional packages. In some small newspapers, their entire local business news comes from the businesses themselves. Trade magazines and bridal magazines are legendary for running companies’ news releases unedited and unattributed. Sometimes the companies are specifically advertisers, sometimes they’re so dominant in the industry they can’t be ignored, and sometimes they’re just filler.