13 May 2023

Orwellian



Watch the video (runtime less than two minutes) before reading further.

Last fall an article in The Guardian offered these observations:
Sinclair Media Group is the owner of the largest number of TV stations in America. “Sinclair’s probably the most dangerous company most people have never heard of,” said Michael Copps, the George W Bush-appointed former chairman of Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the top US broadcast regulator...

The New York Times refers to the group as a “conservative giant” that, since the Bush presidency, has used its 173 television stations “to advance a mostly right-leaning agenda”. The Washington Post describes it as a “company with a long history of favoring conservative causes and candidates on its stations’ newscasts”...

Another cause for concern, and increased scrutiny, is what’s seen as the company’s pronounced political agenda. Sinclair forces its local stations to run pro-Trump “news” segments. In April, they hired Boris Epshteyn, a former Trump campaign spokesman and member of the White House press office, as its chief political analyst. His “must-run” 10-minute political commentary segments unsurprisingly hewed closely to the Trump administration’s message. The news and analysis website Slate, referring to Epshteyn’s contributions, said: “As far as propaganda goes, this is pure, industrial-strength stuff.”..

The focus of the concern is Ajit Pai, the man Trump appointed as head of the country’s top broadcasting regulator, the FCC. Since he began work in January, Pai has been busy relaxing the protections for local broadcasting that had previously limited Sinclair’s expansion. Trump’s new-look FCC has moved swiftly to clear the hurdles for Sinclair’s proposed takeover of Tribune... In addition to changes paving the way for Sinclair’s merger, Pai’s FCC has proposed eliminating one of its most fundamental rules, which requires local news stations to actually have a local studio where they broadcast the news.
Way more at the link.   Does Sinclair own a station in your broadcast area?  Almost certainly.  Wikipedia has a list of the stations owned or operated by the Sinclair Broadcast Group.

I have to commend whoever composed the video.  It is an absolute masterwork - and quite chilling.

For those interested in pursuing this more deeply, Judy Woodruff presented a segment on the PBS Newhour discussing the impact of Sinclair's extensive ownership of local television channels.

Reposted from 2018 because it still has relevance.

11 comments:

  1. This is illustrates only one of the many reasons I do not own a (broadcast receiving) television.
    Unfortunately there isn't an information medium not afflicted by the same sort of slanting (or plain bias)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't watch television either. I quit watching television news many years ago.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I knew it was bad, but I had no idea it was that bad. Holy Moly! Scary.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Note: The deregulation of media, allowing companies to own many more stations started under Bush, and led us to have Clearchannel (iHeartRadio) and CBS Radio (or whatever it's called at the moment) owning (and destroying) most radio stations. It is off note that Clearchannel is currently in bankruptcy.

    @ Aaron S: Does anyone doubt that Trump, .... wants what is best for America?

    I do. It is evident from his actions. Donald Trump cares about himself, and his brand. Every decision he takes benefits him, and him alone. And unless you are part of his inner circle, very few of his decisions have benefited you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It started before that, with Reagan, or maybe even earlier. I recall when one entity could not own more than two radio stations in one market (one AM and one FM). It's only been getting worse since then. The concentration of money and power into fewer hands just keeps on...

      Delete
  5. The first time I heard of this was when John Oliver had a piece on them last year. I don’t understand how this can be legal. And of course, their influence is compounded by the sort of audience I assume they get by being a local broadcast. Who watches local network news anymore?

    The Last Week Tonight episode in question:
    https://youtu.be/GvtNyOzGogc

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And by “this” I mean the Sinclair Broadcast Group and their tactics and “news.”

      Delete
  6. Hey! There's my Little Rock news anchors. Yikes.

    ReplyDelete
  7. After watching Murdoch weaponize Fox News into a threat to American democracy, we are sitting back and laughing while Musk does the same thing to Twitter. By the time the presidential election heats up I don't think we'll be laughing any more.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No worries though about an actual current Secretary of State who weaponized dozens of former intelligence community members, including ex-CIA chiefs John Brennan and Mike Hayden, to kill the Hunter Biden laptop story by labelling it as "Russian disinformation." No threat to democracy in this attempt to influence a US Presidential election? No problem that Twitter at the time did their best to kill the story? And most major news organizations refused to publish anything about the story. It was not until March of 2022 that the Washington Post actually investigated the story and found it to be basically true. The MSM would never seek to influence an election.

      "Appearing before the House Judiciary Committee [former acting CIA director Mike] Morell said he was contacted by Blinken "on or before" October 17, 2020, which "triggered...that intent" leading him to organize the letter, which was provided to Politico.

      Morell admitted he acted because "I wanted him [Biden] to win the election."

      He added that Biden campaign chairman Steve Ricchetti later called to "thank me for putting the statement out."

      https://www.newsweek.com/biden-team-sparked-effort-kill-hunter-laptop-story-ex-cia-boss-1795950

      Not sure who is laughing, but none of this stuff from either party is funny. It's reprehensible no matter who does it.

      Delete
  8. old news this has been done before only with the liberal media ... wake up, it is all propaganda ... we have a unimedia reporting on the uniparty

    ReplyDelete