
Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script - aaronbrethorst
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/business/media/sinclair-news-anchors-script.html
======
philipodonnell
It seems like the issue is a lack of competition, if I don't like what
Sinclair is saying I can not watch it, but if they own all the stations then I
don't have that choice. The FCC did all this while everyone was distracted
with net neutrality, so even if it came up again there the FCC knows how to
distract people already. I'm just not sure what I as a viewer/voter can do
about except wait for the next election, and even then, there's no guarantee
that the candidate who wins is going to do anything about it.

But... looking at the list of stations Sinclair owns[0]... where are the
markets that they control all the stations, defined as ABC+NBC+FOX+CBS? I
honestly don't see any. Is this more of a concern if they do manage to get all
of these, or if the merger with Tribune Media goes through?

0:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stations_owned_or_oper...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stations_owned_or_operated_by_Sinclair_Broadcast_Group)

------
Ajedi32
FYI, the article seems to be linking to a reupload of the original video for
some reason.

This is the original:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI)

~~~
mandelbulb
Nah, they've just linked to another upload -- if you want to know the account,
the link under "social media" points to the same video as the embed one.

Besides, the original is Deadspin's article[1]. The video was downloaded and
posted on Youtube. The Reddit user said that oneself. Deadspin, of course,
also got the idea and news elsewhere, e.g., the linked ThinkProgress video in
the article.

[1] [https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-americas-largest-
local...](https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-americas-largest-local-tv-
owner-turned-its-news-anc-1824233490)

------
nemild
For anyone interested, I'm always open to PRs for the "Media Literacy for
Engineers" doc I put together:

[https://github.com/nemild/hacking-
engineers](https://github.com/nemild/hacking-engineers)

Examples like this are what I include, about how third-parties can manipulate
media sources for their own ends.

------
cirrus-clouds
Charlie Brooker did an excellent spoof video of the way news is reported. The
video is 8 years old (made in 2010) but it still rings true today:

How to report the news:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI)

Every TV news report on the economy in one:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN2iVe8_Ato](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN2iVe8_Ato)

------
nimbius
It is important to reinforce the wholesomeness, and trustworthiness, of your
brand or product when that product faces the significant risk of potential
legislative regulation in light of growing aversion to its decades-long
embrace of lies, manipulation, and 'fake news' in the pursuit of ratings and
shareholder value.

Sinclair has taken up the mantle of PR Firm to engage in some preemptive
damage control. 15 years ago all you had to say was "Fair and Balanced."

~~~
vinhboy
You are way way way way too optimistic... It is clear by the current state of
our politics that there is no repercussion for lying.

The fact that Sinclair has been growing is evidence of that.

------
beat
It's kind of sad to see a potentially important discussion here devolve into
a: off-topic threads about policy (DACA), or partisan trolling about #fakenews
to derail the subject away from Sinclair.

That said, something I'm curious about... how many people still get their news
primarily from local tv broadcast in this day and age? And what are the age
ranges of those people? Lacking any actual data, I'd suggest by complete
conjecture that it's not that many, and they skew _much_ older than the
general population. I'd be surprised if anyone under the age of 30 watches
local tv news regularly at all.

I know that personally, I watch so little local news that when I do, the
cognitive dissonance is kind of jarring. And when do I watch it? Mostly, when
visiting my Baby Boomer in-laws...

~~~
HankB99
I watch morning news in the Chicago market for weather and traffic. I suppose
I also get local news. And I get irked because I don't think cute Youtube
videos are news but regardless of the station I can't seem to escape that. I'm
getting tired of the transplant doctor that dresses up as a Star Wars
character (the big furry thing) to deliver good news. Maybe I'm getting too
old or just not enough of a Star Wars fan. (Wookie. That's the thing that the
doctor impersonates.)

I looked for Sinclair station ownership in this market and according to The
Book of Knowledge (Wikipedia) there is none.

------
korethr
So, this explains the creepy video I saw over the weekend, of numerous news
stations reciting the same canned speech, verbatim. When I see one station
doing it, or similar sentiment from multiple stations in their own words, that
might slightly temper my cynicism about the (lack of) objectivity and
truthfulness of the news. But when I see shit like this, it only serves to
harden my cynicism.

~~~
krapp
>So, this explains the creepy video I saw over the weekend, of numerous news
stations reciting the same canned speech, verbatim.

Local news stations receive packages and content with scripts pre-written from
national networks and other sources all the time. It's not a conspiracy, and
it shouldn't cast doubt on the truthfulness of a story.

Television news is a scripted medium, and most stations don't have the time or
talent to write a completely unique script for every newscast from scratch.

~~~
sjwright
When it's the introduction to a news package, fair enough.

When it's a politically charged attack on competitors, it crosses a pretty
uncomfortable line.

------
shadowtree
The branding of those stations is the core problem, no?

Says ABC/NBC/Fox - but actually that's just a logo.

Why not have them clearly labeled as Sinclair, then consumer would know. And
maybe still be fine with it.

This way it's indeed shady.

------
rglover
Nothing new. I worked in a newsroom as an intern and most major news stations
rely (maybe, relied, it's been a few years) on a tool like ENPS. It's made by
the Associated Press and has a "wire" feature where new stories come into. So,
e.g., if there was a plane crash, that message would be pushed out to all
newsrooms that rely on ENPS.

The news producers were lazy, too. They'd literally take the script that ENPS
pushes out, tweak a few words, and put it on air. I was working in a minor
midwestern market (Toledo, Ohio). If you watched the evening broadcasts in the
same market and nationally, you'd frequently see the same stories and similar
verbiage popping up.

Being surprised by a broadcast group like Sinclair was forcing a narrative is
like being surprised that the sky is blue. The "news" is highly filtered and
easily controlled. To think otherwise is deliberate ignorance.

The broadcasting industry is corrupt and untrustworthy as all hell. My father
worked in it at a high level (owning licenses and stations) and he'd
frequently come home from trips either stone faced or frustrated beyond
belief:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/business/media/22spectrum...](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/business/media/22spectrum.html)
(he's the stately looking black fella throwing a fit in this piece).

To trust anything the mass media tells you is to severely handicap your
intelligence. Unfortunately, large swats of the general public do exactly
that.

/rant

~~~
ptr_void
Where do you suggest people go to get their news instead ?

~~~
stronglikedan
One must try to find points of view from all "sides", and then apply critical
thinking to everything that one reads/hears. Every source is very biased and
full of a lot of (mostly, really) shit, but the facts can be discerned if
personal biases give way to objective analysis.

~~~
beat
That's the logical failing of the moderate - to reduce everything to opinion
and bias, and ignore the existence of fact.

If one side says 2+2=4, and the other side said 2+2=6, the truth is _not_ that
2+2=5 and everyone needs to stop being so partisan.

------
mattnewton
What better way to drive home the point that news is bought to influence
people, then to buy a bunch of local news channels and use it to tell people
that? There is some beautiful symmetry here, even if it was unintentional.

------
AlphaWeaver
The actual video they talked about is linked on this [1] page... It's mildly
haunting to watch...

[1]: [https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-americas-largest-
local...](https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-americas-largest-local-tv-
owner-turned-its-news-anc-1824233490)

------
ChicagoDave
I do see this as a bad thing, but I also know that everyone under 40 gets
their news from the web. The target audience for these channels are older
people who don't read news online or on mobile phones.

In a way, Sinclair is becoming a TV streaming service.

I sense the badness, but I also think they run the risk of spending a lot of
money on a wasted effort.

You can only influence people if they're dumb _and_ watching your news
programs. Seems like a dwindling market if you ask me. People already have FOX
News and they've reached their ceiling (35% of the population). Sinclair is
going to run into the same demographic problem.

~~~
anigbrowl
I have gotten my news from web for 25 years but I still watch local news 2
night s a week - to see coverage of some local issue, to check on the weather
or see a bit of a baseball game, or just by default.

And while people over 40 are generally in the second half of their lives and
heading for the demographic exits, that doesn't mean they're politically
irrelevant. They're far more likely to vote, more likely to be
homeowners/property tax payers (with the political heft that that gives), and
have greater financial and political heft than their younger counterparts.
You're naive if you think they're just bumbling along without thinking of much
of anything. Just because you find that demographic boring and personally
irrelevant doesn't mean they can't exert political power over you int eh
aggregate. Many such people are willing to have their opinions shaped or
validated by broadcast media and act accordingly.

Take Fox News; it's easy to make fun of their audience, because who int heir
right mind would take people like Sean Hannity seriously? And yet millions do,
and their existence and hostility cannot be wished away.

Incidentally, just "getting your news from the web" is no guarantee of
objectivity either. Come on, we live in a society where people in high places
tweet links to Infowars or Qanon conspiracy theories non-ironically.

~~~
ChicagoDave
I agree with your assessment, but my "gut" feeling is that Sinclair is over-
reaching and the expectation won't match the spend. ESPN just announced their
streaming service ESPN+. This is just another nail in cable TV's coffin. In a
few years, broadcast television may be on its last legs.

We're on the verge of a Spotify for TV where you can pick your own channels,
including which "local" channel you want. Some people may still pick the
Sinclair run station and be influenced, but my point is that we're reading
this Sinclair deal in the context of the past.

And people have an interesting habit of recognizing when they're being
manipulated and they call B.S.

First West Virginia, now Oklahoma where school teachers are fed up with tax
cuts that only benefit corporations and the wealthy and end up taking away
from teachers and students.

We have a tragic and unexpectedly organized and mature set of Florida
teenagers that are giving the NRA a run for their money. They may have knocked
a Fox News mainstay off the air by forcing most of her advertisers to bolt.

My sense, and it's just intuition based on the news of the day, is that people
are just starting to push back. Sinclair probably needed the FCC changes 10
years ago. I think it's probably just too late.

------
cmurf
_So funny to watch Fake News Networks, among the most dishonest groups of
people I have ever dealt with, criticize Sinclair Broadcasting for being
biased. Sinclair is far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC, which is a
total joke._
[https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/98079918342580224...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/980799183425802240)

I think it's reasonable to conclude that POTUS likes that Sinclair compels
local news anchors to recite scripts that present a favorable impression of,
support for, his policies or him personally.

This is the American crony capitalism version of what Putin did with his state
media in order to gain and retain control of the country, and destroy his
adversaries. Trump won't have to have his adversaries poisoned. He's poisoning
the ability for people to triangulate. And near as I can tell this is what
people who support him want. They do not want contrary opinions. They want an
autocrat.

------
squozzer
A certain conservative radio talk show host has a hobby of stringing together
identical-sounding phrases from various sources in the establishment media, as
if they all read from the same memo. It seemed certain someone had coordinated
their talking points.

Is the Sinclair issue that much different?

Presumably the former example was performed by a group of like-minded
individuals operating under some flavor of free will, who arrived at a
consensus. But we can't be sure that was the process. They might have been
coerced, or merely chose to parrot each other regardless of circumstance,
because they found themselves so well aligned.

Sinclair, on the other hand, assumed obedience by virtue of signing the
checks.

That said, I don't know if this situation is as scary as it used to be, now
that we've had some experience with the power of more monolithic-appearing
news sources such as FB and Google.

------
nsxwolf
This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.

~~~
robotrout
I agree. 232 people control the news that 277 million americans are allowed to
see. ([1] from 2012). Many of us have been pounding this drum for a long time,
including Trump himself. I think it is this control at a national level that
the Sinclair news anchors were being told to warn people about, but the NYT
has flipped the narrative on them, and now they're the bad guys. Genius, but
unfortunate.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-
control-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-
control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6)

~~~
losteric
> Many of us have been pounding this drum for a long time, including Trump
> himself.

Can you cite that? It sounds like prime material for Reddit's
/r/TrumpCriticizesTrump/

~~~
robotrout
Cite it? Fake News has been his mantra for awhile. I think you'll find it.

~~~
losteric
I don't see how "fake news" relates to media monopolization. It's just a
fallacious outright rejection of unpleasant news.

In fact, Trump just stated he supports Sinclair's monopolization.

~~~
mistermann
Monopolization is highly beneficial to facilitating fake news, you don't see
that?

~~~
losteric
It's the other way around. Fake news is selective ignorance that distracts
from the cancer eating away at our formerly-educated electorate.

~~~
mistermann
One entity owning multiple outlets and therefore having the ability to
broadcast a consistent message, as literally shown in the video, not only does
not facilitate fake news, but _can not_? It acts as an antidote to fake news,
in all cases?

~~~
losteric
"Fake news" is a symptom of consumer ignorance, and beneficial for
facilitating monopolization.

~~~
mistermann
Please answer my question.

~~~
losteric
Which one? They looked rhetorical to me.

------
wu-ikkyu
Isn't this pretty much the case for all corporate media? The narrative is set
from the top down, and if anyone strays too far outside the Overton Window,
they're punished. Example: Phil Donahue getting fired from MSNBC for speaking
against the war in Iraq.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Donahue#MSNBC_program](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Donahue#MSNBC_program)

~~~
SonicSoul
Phil Donahue was not a news anchor. What makes this case different is that
this is scripted material posing as real local news as part of basic cable
package. Most people will not treat this as crafted message from a
corporation, but actual news.

~~~
wu-ikkyu
Isn't most corporate cable news a scripted message read from a teleprompter?

~~~
maxerickson
National anchors clearly have a boss that they listen to, but they also pretty
clearly have a pretty large amount of editorial control over their shows.

~~~
wu-ikkyu
>they also pretty clearly have a pretty large amount of editorial control over
their shows.

The case of Phil Donahue indicates otherwise.

~~~
macintux
Which, again: Phil Donahue was not a news anchor.

~~~
wu-ikkyu
Did he discuss news and current events on a television show? If so he can be
called a news anchor, or a news presenter. Why are you stressing the semantics
if not only to euphemize?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_presenter](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_presenter)

~~~
ModernMech
It might be due to Fox News getting out of a lawsuit by claiming what they
broadcast isn't news but entertainment (at least in the prime time slots)

~~~
wu-ikkyu
Do you have a source for this? After googling "fox news entertainment lawsuit"
it appears this may be a myth

[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fox-skews/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-
check/fox-skews/)

------
Fjolsvith
This is a non issue for my household either way. We cut the cord a year ago
and haven't missed the spin doctors and commercial breaks.

------
daodedickinson
You've never seen these kind of videos before? Local news stations have been
gutted for at least a decade and they get just about all their non-local
content in this way.

------
RickJWag
Reminds me of when Trump won the Republican nomination-- a gob of stories ran
with basically the same theme and spin.

There's no such thing as straight news. It's all spin, one way or the other.

Here's Politico's take on the Trump speech lockstep reaction:
[https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trump-convention-
spee...](https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trump-convention-speech-
media-226010)

------
CodeWriter23
The interesting thing here is the groupthink believes this methodology is
unique to Sinclair.

------
WhompingWindows
In my eyes, this is a clear set/spike play. A huge corporation, enabled by
their corrupt allies in the FCC, buy up hundreds of "local" stations. They
then use the local cred/reputation of these stations to suggest that fake news
is rampant on other sources (not controlled by Sinclair). They then tilt the
dialogue nation-wide. Meanwhile, the average citizen is unaware that their
trusted local anchor is bought/sold, they lack education and resources to
educate themselves, and they are pushed further towards whatever dialogue the
Sinclair executives are paid to push them towards.

Does anyone from either side of the aisle consider a national corporation
owning local stations and forcing scripts down their throat a good thing for
the marketplace of ideas?

~~~
meri_dian
How is that any different from major news organizations like CNN with a
national reach clearly pushing biased anti-Trump news constantly?

It's funny: Trump attacks CNN for being fake, biased news, then CNN responds
by focusing all of their negative reporting on Trump, becoming exactly what
Trump says they are. People would have had much more respect for CNN if they
had stuck to the middle path in the face of Trump's insults.

We should not turn a blind eye towards some instances of bias in media simply
because they reinforce our own values and beliefs.

~~~
mcphage
> It's funny: Trump attacks CNN for being fake, biased news, then CNN responds
> by focusing all of their negative reporting on Trump, becoming exactly what
> Trump says they are.

CNN reporting negatively on Trump doesn't make them "fake". He's a bad
president and a bad leader; reporting on that means you're telling the truth.
Fake mean lying, not reporting truth you don't want to hear.

~~~
gwbas1c
Have you read their editorials? They're so biased and poorly written that I
can no longer regard CNN as a good news source.

It's a case of "two wrongs don't make a right." Lowering reporting standards
because the other side lowered reporting standards means we have no good news.

Not being able to trust the media (both CNN and Faux news) is a bigger problem
than electing a lousy president.

------
rhacker
Seems like we need to get more people cord-cut immediately...

~~~
eligundry
Youtube recommends far more dangerous stuff.

------
analogmemory
Last Week Tonight (John Oliver) dove into this last year. It's really
frustrating that they can leverage so much political sway under the cover of
"news reporting". Then forcing news stations to broadcast this garbage.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc)

~~~
rlindgren
"&#x1f44e;" to the John Oliver reference. His "reporting" is as biased as it
gets. His show is written in a style that convinces the subconscious to accept
presented arguments without engaging any serious logical scrutiny. Just try to
remember if at any point during any of his broadcasts you actually analyzed
the subject of his monologues, rather than simply furthering the thought-
process that he was laying out for you. Chances are that you never have
because it's written to be persuasive (obviously) and only incidentally
informative. Sadly, I know this is precisely what many people now believe
"journalism" to be...

~~~
root_axis
Can you give me an example of unbiased reporting on television?

~~~
rlindgren
I would say that hacker news is actually a fairly objective aggregator. It's
also participatory, which hopefully checks bias at some level. But, as this
isn't television... it's not a valid example, in response to your question.
Also, hacker news isn't ad-supported, which is nice.

~~~
ModernMech
But there is still bias here. Bias in the stories submitted, in that they're
skewed toward the I interests of white male 20-30 somethings. Not a lot of
diversity of opinion and point of view here, which is another way of saying
prevailing bias.

------
thaumaturgy
Trump recently took DACA off the negotiating table, announcing it in a tweet,
citing a Fox News & Friends segment on 'caravans' of inbound immigrants:
[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration/trump-
say...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration/trump-says-daca-
deal-for-young-immigrants-is-off-idUSKCN1H81C1)

The President is watching this same garbage and making policy decisions based
on it. Let that sink in for a moment.

~~~
robotrout
If you watched the state of the union, you know that Trump made a proposal
about DACA that was such a huge compromise to the left, that much of his base
raised hell. The left refused that compromise, and refused again, when he
asked for DACA and the wall to be addressed in the latest spending bill. Since
he has twice been rebuffed on his compromises, he's going the other way. That
seems reasonable to me.

~~~
dahdum
I was surprised Democrats didn’t compromise on that, I think they are too
focused on making Trump fail at any cost.

I’m all for increased immigration and amnesty, but I’m not in support of open
borders, so a compromise for increased border security sounded like good
policy to me.

~~~
ModernMech
No one is seriously proposing open boarders. Anyone on the right telling you
otherwise is selling you a straw man. And let's all remember, a border without
a wall is _not_ an "open" border. That's not what that means.

~~~
dahdum
I consider them open now, in practice not law.

Despite also supporting amnesty, chain migration, and increased visa quotas
I’ve been told I’m racist for wanting a secure border. Racist for not
supporting border policies that create an underclass of undocumented, helpless
workers.

~~~
digitaltrees
Open boarders worked well in the early united states. I don't want to go back
to closed boarders between New York and New Jersey.

~~~
dahdum
Uncapped unskilled immigration works great when you have jobs available, and
early America had plenty of those. Coupled with zero entitlement programs it
was a perfect recipe for growth.

Doesn't work so well now, it would put enormous pressure on social programs
already near their breaking point, and drive unemployment sky high as
unskilled jobs are diminishing. Crime would increase as poverty is positive
correlated.

However, if you make it past that initial surge, the _2nd generation_ could
provide an enormous boost to the economy as long as education was prioritized.

Compare to uncapped skilled immigration and it's a much higher risk.

~~~
digitaltrees
Rome had more than one tier of member of society, (eg citizen and non
citizens) you could tie social benefits to certain social performance
expectations such as military service, length of residency. I am not
advocating open boarders or a multi tier citizen status structure merely
showing possible solutions.

------
rhapsodic
Those news anchors were either OK with the contents of the script they were
ordered to read, or they were gutless cowards for not resigning or allowing
themselves to be fired.

~~~
macintux
The journalism job market ain't what it used to be. I find it hard to label
people trying to keep their family fed and housed as "gutless cowards."

~~~
anigbrowl
That's true, but getting paid a lot so that the personal sacrifices would be
that much greater isn't greater moral ill for the news anchors. They could go
and get regular jobs (ie at median pay when starting a different career, but
are over-leveraged, basically. That's a tough spot to be in, but it doesn't
make it OK to participate in further debasement of the system.

------
fwgwgwgch
Isn't that the entire model since long of the owners of multiple local news
channels? It's a running joke on reddit since so many years.

~~~
portofcall
The problem is that they’re the single largest television broadcaster.

 _Headquartered in Hunt Valley, Maryland, the company is the largest
television station operator in the United States by number of stations, and
largest by total coverage; owning or operating a total of 193 stations across
the country (233 after all currently proposed sales are approved) in over 100
markets (covering 40% of American households), many of which are located in
the South and Midwest._

~~~
yborg
With the shift to the various 21st century streaming platforms, broadcast TV
in its traditional form is rapidly becoming the bastion of the elderly. The
average traditional broadcast news viewer is 50+[1] so very soon Sinclair will
be dominating retirement homes everywhere in America. It's a demographic that
will literally die out from under them, and seems like a poor long-term
investment.

[1] [http://www.journalism.org/2016/07/07/pathways-to-
news/](http://www.journalism.org/2016/07/07/pathways-to-news/)

~~~
portofcall
You may not be aware of this, but typically you don’t enter a nursing home at
50. Either way, Sinclair is also well into streaming services, which you could
have discovered with even a cursory glance at their Wikipedia page. Of course,
a huge number of people, especially people who vote, are in that same age
bracket.

------
fwgwgwgch
Why is the part about Sinclair news reporting on "Islamic terror" and "Trump
support" singled out. Do they not report on anything else at all? Or is
reporting on both this stuff by default a wrong thing to do?

~~~
losteric
Sinclair does not report on anything. Local TV stations do their own
journalism, but Sinclair owns the station and can order the local broadcasters
to read scripts.

Those topics are likely the only ones with concrete evidence.

------
swerveonem
How much would it cost to buy all that airtime?

------
jessaustin
After making it about halfway through the comments here, I flagged TFA. It is
probably "hypocritical" for me to say this, since I also have political
opinions. Here it is anyway: despite the widespread understanding that
"mainstream" news media leans Democrat, the fact that USA president is
controversial and drives increased viewership has added tens of millions of
dollars to their bottom lines. This would make a thoughtful person wonder just
how committed to the Democrats (or "the truth"?) they really are. Similar
observations about other media firms are left as an exercise for the reader.

------
MrPresident
Why is this news? Conan covered this years ago.
[https://mic.com/articles/77721/watch-conan-o-brien-bust-
loca...](https://mic.com/articles/77721/watch-conan-o-brien-bust-local-tv-
news-stations-for-running-the-exact-same-story#.5rRTuSPfw)

~~~
Someone1234
Because Sinclair just purchased more TV stations, so many in fact that it was
banned under previous administrations at the FCC. At the start of 2017, the
FCC just rewrote the rules allowing Sinclair to own a large swath of the US's
local news capacity.

In many markets they're the sole source of local news.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-07/sinclair-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-07/sinclair-
said-close-to-buying-tribune-for-about-45-a-share)

~~~
jandrese
They're also the most likely candidate to pick up the pieces when iHeartRadio
goes bankrupt. They're going to have the strongest propaganda outlet since the
times of Hearst newspapers. This is an abject failure of the FCC.

~~~
Bud
The FCC hasn't failed, here. They were intentionally hamstrung by the right
wing.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine)

------
Overtonwindow
I'm not clear why this is a problem. A corporation asked its broadcasters to
make a statement on fake news. This statement sounds similar to others made by
other corporate owned networks. Viewers are invited to comment on the website.

~~~
alistairSH
The problem is the corporation. Sinclair has it's own political agenda.
Forcing anchors across the US to recite something is bad enough, but when that
something is of questionable truth, and orchestrated to minimuze Sinclair's
own propensity to push its right-ist agenda, it's downright scary.

~~~
0x445442
Yeah, just about as scary as GE, Disney, Time Warner et al. pushing their left
wing agendas via CNN, MSNBC/NBC and ABC.

See, everyone can play this game in the Postmodernist world.

~~~
mozumder
OK but now you have to explain why pushing a "left wing agenda" is supposed to
be scary.

Was it voting rights? Is voting rights scary? Or perhaps universal health
care? Is that scary? Or a public education? Wooow that's REALLY scary!

Come on.. scare us! We liberals love a good scary story!

~~~
Consultant32452
It's easy if you just blindly accept the axioms of one of the groups. You
accept the axioms of left wingers, so it doesn't seem scary to you. I'm not a
right winger but they could just as easily say: murdering millions of unborn
children, robbing us of our right to defend ourselves, denying the right to
freedom of association, infringing on our freedom of speech, infringing on our
freedom of religion, etc. Those are all pretty scary.

~~~
KirinDave
> robbing us of our right to defend ourselves

Well, the problem with that narrative is that most of the center-left is quite
happy to find a comprimise. It seems like arms dealers are too, actually. It's
mostly the NRA unable to disengage its PR machine from collapsing the entire
narrative to "you'll take our guns" vs "total gun freedom".

So that itself is a good thing to bring up: it's impossible to disassemble
with facts because it's already counterfactual.

Similar things can be said of the freedom of association and freedom of
religion arguments. They're currently fixed by a narrative of constant assault
that most folks freely admit is poorly supported in their daily experience,
but that they're convinced (by media groups coordinated by Sinclair) are just
over the horizon coming from them.

It's certainly fair to claim left wing media has bias. We should always be
watchful for bias and unfairness in our media. It's just that right now,
unless you believe in hidden child porn rings in pizza shops being shut down
by a secret Trump task force (the Storm, a literal extension of pizzagate),
potential influence from demons/lizard people in the democratic party (Alex
Jones pushes this narrative), or a global Jewish coordinated conspiracy that
reaches down to the level of each individual life on the planet, and that ever
Muslim is part of a coordinated global conspiracy to "end whitness"... Well
you get the picture. Unless you believe in the output of this machine
coordinated to spread this disinformation (and I say machine because we've got
people freely admitting part of it is theirs, e.g., Cambridge Analytica),
facts and uncharitable readings are sufficient from the left wing media.

A centrist or even a libertarian should have no problem picking their poison
in the marketplace of ideas, unless they're genuinely bought into these
increasingly absurd conspiracy theories that put 9/11-truther levels of weird
to shame.

~~~
Consultant32452
* Noting I'm arguing someone else's position. *

>Well, the problem with that narrative is that most of the center-left is
quite happy to find a comprimise. It seems like arms dealers are too,
actually. It's mostly the NRA unable to disengage its PR machine from
collapsing the entire narrative to "you'll take our guns" vs "total gun
freedom".

You too are collapsing the narrative to "NRA is evil." The power that the NRA
has is that it can mobilize countless voters who support what the NRA does.
Pretending that the NRA is a rogue organization that doesn't represent a huge
segment of the population is disingenuous.

>A centrist or even a libertarian should have no problem picking their poison
in the marketplace of ideas, unless they're genuinely bought into these
increasingly absurd conspiracy theories that put 9/11-truther levels of weird
to shame.

Tell me again how Trump is a fascist and neo-Nazis are taking over the
country. And further that Trump who bombed the shit out of a major Russian
ally (Syria) is under the thumb of Russia because of pee-pee tape in the same
breath that you make fun of Trump for being a germaphobe (part of why he eats
so much fast food).

~~~
KirinDave
> You too are collapsing the narrative to "NRA is evil."

I'm not sure if the NRA is evil or not. I don't think "evil" is a very good
label for Atheists to use, and I count myself among that cohort.

I think the NRA's published position matches with my account. I do not think
it's a helpful or reasonable position.

> Pretending that the NRA is a rogue organization that doesn't represent a
> huge segment of the population is disingenuous.

Quite the contrary, I think the NRA represents a rather small segment of the
population. They're trying to broaden that segment with significant cash
outlay and with very misleading arguments that turn things like, "Bans on
modifications that allow semi-automatic weapons to achieve >2r/s sustained
fire rates" into "They hate our freedom and they're coming for our guns and
it's time to strike back." That's a _chartiable_ reading of NRATV's current
message.

> Tell me again how Trump is a fascist and neo-Nazis are taking over the
> country.

"Taking over" is certainly not the word. "Have always been here and are
increasingly more exposed." Unless of course we ignore the continued defense
of openly self-labeled neo-nazi groups right out of Trump's own mouth, this is
a factual reading of the situation.

> is under the thumb of Russia because of pee-pee tape

Any president would fall prey to this rumor. It's hilarious. I wish Obama had
a pee-pee tape scandal. It's quintessentially American.

What's I hope less so is the direct and numerous conflicts of interest that
have been poorly handled by the Trump admin, the numerous (denied) allegations
of campaign finance violations that were then not only proven, but plead
guilty to by Trump's cohort.

Again: you're equivocating based on utterly meaningless and boring things.
Sure, some leftits are dumb. For the most part, the center-left media
_ignores_ the majority of these stories after they come out (as has been
pointed out in other places, Fox brings up the pee tape more over time than
any other outlet). Nor have I actually ever even heard the phrase, "Trump is a
germophobe" come up except as a refutation.

All this is smoke and mirrors, and an attempt to deflect from the truly
frightening admissions that folk who ran the Trump campaign's media have made.
They're literally suggesting the use of human trafficking to run a sex
entrapment extortion game on politicans and you're like, "Well the libs
believe in a peepee tape." I'm sure some libs believe in UFOs too, but this
doesn't dismiss or excuse the facts at hand.

~~~
Consultant32452
>I think the NRA's published position matches with my account. I do not think
it's a helpful or reasonable position.

The NRA's position is no more unreasonable than forcing Christians to pay for
what they believe to be child murder.

>Bans on modifications that allow semi-automatic weapons to achieve >2r/s
sustained fire rates

Actually, after the Las Vegas shooting the NRA came out in favor of banning
bump stocks. [0]

>"Have always been here and are increasingly more exposed." Unless of course
we ignore the continued defense of openly self-labeled neo-nazi groups right
out of Trump's own mouth, this is a factual reading of the situation.

Yep, they've always been there and while there's fluctuations the general
trend is there are fewer and fewer of them. The largest neo-Nazi gathering in
ages was a year or two ago and they managed to get a few hundred people to
show up. The outsized media attention on these crazy people is to attempt to
associate them with the approximate half of the country which happens to vote
Republican. In contrast you can look at the media coverage of Antifa and other
far left groups that have set fires and killed people over the last few years.
It's very different and it's easy to understand why.

It's also important to look at the big picture here. Rather than condemning
the alt-right he said there were "good people" on both sides of a rally where
someone was killed and one of those sides was the alt-right. But do you know
what that allowed him to do? He was in a position where he was able to go to
Congress with a position supporting a path to citizenship for dreamers in
exchange for increased funding for border control and some stupid wall
funding. And there was hardly any push back from the far right. Giving them a
tongue lashing might have made you feel better, but it likely would not have
helped the country in any way.

>All this is smoke and mirrors, and an attempt to deflect from the truly
frightening admissions that folk who ran the Trump campaign's media have made.
They're literally suggesting the use of human trafficking to run a sex
entrapment extortion game on politicans and you're like, "Well the libs
believe in a peepee tape." I'm sure some libs believe in UFOs too, but this
doesn't dismiss or excuse the facts at hand.

Some crazy right wingers have some crazy conspiracy theories like 9-11
truthers and pizzagate. Some crazy left wingers have some crazy conspiracy
theories about GMOs, alternative medicine, vaccines, etc. But this isn't a
discussion about who has the craziest crazies, this discussion is about how
the mainstream media biases when reporting on all issues including the
crazies.

[0]: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/top-house-
republica...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/top-house-republicans-
open-to-legislation-regulating-bump-
stocks/2017/10/05/4580cb54-a9dc-11e7-b3aa-c0e2e1d41e38_story.html)

~~~
KirinDave
> He was in a position where he was able to go to Congress with a position
> supporting a path to citizenship for dreamers in exchange for increased
> funding for border control and some stupid wall funding. And there was
> hardly any push back from the far right. Giving them a tongue lashing might
> have made you feel better, but it likely would not have helped the country
> in any way.

This "Trump is playing 4d hyperchess and can see externalities that by the way
didn't actually pan out because not only did DACA not go through, but Trump
took it off the table spitefully because he couldn't secure wall funding"
argument? Unconvincing at best. I don't believe it because I don't see
evidence of it. But I certainly don't think that the desire to appease
conservative Americans includes calling people who publicly state their goal
is to establish a white ethnostate in the ashes of American democracy "good
people." They're literally opposing the institutions and laws he swore to
uphold.

> Some crazy right wingers have some crazy conspiracy theories like 9-11
> truthers and pizzagate. Some crazy left wingers have some crazy conspiracy
> theories about GMOs, alternative medicine, vaccines, etc. But this isn't a
> discussion about who has the craziest crazies, this discussion is about how
> the mainstream media biases when reporting on all issues including the
> crazies.

And yet you're seemingly unwilling to quote, engage, or even acknowledge that
side of the conversation?

I find that side of the discussion much more interesting.

~~~
Consultant32452
>This "Trump is playing 4d hyperchess and can see externalities

Whether or not Trump's behavior is intentional or accidental, the outcome is
the same.

>And yet you're seemingly unwilling to quote, engage, or even acknowledge that
side of the conversation?

As I acknowledged multiple times in this thread, I'm not even arguing my own
position. I'm pointing out that there are other ways of seeing the world,
other axioms that can be accepted which make the mainstream media look very
biased. I don't need to engage in an argument about whether neo-Nazis are
worse than Antifa because it's irrelevant to our conversation. The topics I
brought up were pretty mainstream things like abortion, gun rights, etc. You
have brought the conversation to the fringe. But this isn't about the fringe.
It's about the middle. Of course the bias is expressed in how the media talks
about the fringe too, but again that's irrelevant. We probably agree on many
if not most of these issues, but conservatives are not crazy in seeing that
the mass media doesn't represent them fairly, or in many cases doesn't
represent them at all.

~~~
KirinDave
All you're doing is deflecting and avoiding meaningful conversation about very
serious issues involving data privacy and information manipulation in an
effort to equivocate. I can read your other comments, and I can see how you
play this game.

I'm uninterested in continuing with you in any capacity. Thank you for your
time, but we won't speak again while you use this name. Goodbye.

~~~
Consultant32452
This is my first message in this thread:

>It's easy if you just blindly accept the axioms of one of the groups. You
accept the axioms of left wingers, so it doesn't seem scary to you. I'm not a
right winger but they could just as easily say: murdering millions of unborn
children, robbing us of our right to defend ourselves, denying the right to
freedom of association, infringing on our freedom of speech, infringing on our
freedom of religion, etc. Those are all pretty scary.

The whole point of the discussion is to point out that the world looks
differently if you accept different axioms. I'm sorry if it bothered you that
I wasn't willing to debate the merits of your views vs the views of the
imaginary third party I described, but I think my intentions were clear here.

------
ilamont
There are many threats to democracy, but this is not one of them.

Audience numbers for local TV news (not to mention national TV news) is
shrinking across the U.S. Younger people in particular will not sit down to
watch a 30 minute talking-heads newscast stuffed to the gills with car,
telecom, and insurance ads.

See: [https://www.poynter.org/news/new-pew-study-says-local-tv-
new...](https://www.poynter.org/news/new-pew-study-says-local-tv-news-viewing-
dropping-fast)

~~~
ahoy
Old people watch more local news and vote at higher rates than any other
demographic group.

~~~
mschuster91
> Old people [...] vote at higher rates than any other demographic group.

Now that one is bound to change. Young people, both in the US and abroad, are
discovering the powers of social media and organize to advance their causes.
Trump with his backwards, racist and misogynistic rhetoric and his politics
mostly serving the old, white, male population provides a perfect enemy figure
to rally against.

Somewhere on Reddit I have read that from now until the elections this fall
there will be 4 million young people turning old enough to vote (sounds about
right, given ~4M births per year in the US). That's a _massive_ block of
voters and most of them will either vote Democrat or some of the fringe
parties.

~~~
anigbrowl
I'm with you on this, but don't count your chickens. Young people are
historically crap at voting and there are also structural barriers placed in
the way of their doing so in many places (eg not accepting college ID as a
valid form of voter ID).

~~~
mschuster91
> and there are also structural barriers placed in the way of their doing so
> in many places

Thanks to the powers of social media, though, this won't be as much an issue
as in previous elections - people can share workarounds and actually
_document_ stuff happening and spreading the word - worldwide, for free and
not (easily) censorable.

The "old generation" simply has accepted being more or less denied their right
to vote, the current young generation has the willpower and the resources to
actually fight back... where the biggest and most effective resource is
creating outrage on social media.

~~~
anigbrowl
Yes, Iused to think that as well. Here's the downside: people talking about
something doesn't translate into change i the short term. Electoral
shenanigans? No doubt, but the odds of that leading to action before the polls
close is small. I'm not saying this to be discouraging, just to point out the
strategic issues.

Suppose I am a political bad actor and want o manipulate an election. I study
precinct records (and have a small army of motivated assistants) and identify
key places where a small change can make a big difference. Of course, my
opponents have poll watchers out looking for such shenanigans, and I suspect
they may try to disrupt my shenanigans by rallying people to protest them. So
I just implement shenanigans at more locations than I need, and ideally im
places that are easy for my opponents to get to but where I don't actually
have any hope of affecting the outcome. With luck they'll declare victory on
my false target while never noticing what's going on at my real one.

The basic weakness of swarm tactics is that whoever has the best information
operation can easily divide and conquer over a short timeframe.

So yeah people are more motivated and more aware than in previous elections,
which is definitely a good thing, but stay alive to the fact that a political
opponent is equally capable of iteration and has motivated activists of their
own.

------
HugoDaniel
They most likely had their speeches written by the same person/people/company.
It goes like that in most countries: a big media outlet sells pre-made
news/opinions to most newspapers which they then only adapt slightly and keep
most of the taglines and significant phrasing.

~~~
sp332
_The script came from Sinclair Broadcast Group, the country’s largest
broadcaster, which owns or operates 193 television stations.

Last week, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer published a copy of the speech and
reported that employees at a local news station there, KOMO, were unhappy
about the script. CNN reported on it on March 7 and said Scott Livingston, the
senior vice president of news for Sinclair, had read almost the exact same
speech for a segment that was distributed to outlets a year ago._

