His tongue, firmly implanted in cheek...
Regards
Craig
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/04/sinclair-broadcast-groups-outrageous-assault-on-our-democracy/
Sinclair Broadcast Group’s Outrageous Assault on Our Democracy
Kyle SmithApril 4, 2018 5:19 PM
The bipartisan case against a broadcasting behemoth’s shameless editorializing
Sinclair Broadcast Group was caught red-handed when it ordered local news
anchors at its stations to read an editorial handed down from their parent
corporation. The outrage that followed, heated as it was, was bipartisan and
entirely justified.
Jimmy Kimmel, an increasingly vital and astute observer of the political scene,
was among the first to raise the alarm after Deadspin published a video
exposing Sinclair. Kimmel tweeted that it was “dangerous to our democracy” for
newscasts aired by Sinclair-owned stations to include virtually identical
segments in which local anchors read from a script ginned up at corporate
headquarters about the dangers of biased and irresponsible reporting.
Another widely respected source of nonpartisan media commentary, Dan Rather,
wrote in a Facebook post, “News anchors looking into camera and reading a
script handed down by a corporate overlord, words meant to obscure the truth
not elucidate it, isn’t journalism. It’s propaganda. It’s Orwellian. A slippery
slope to how despots wrest power, silence dissent, and oppress the masses.”
Considering the stakes here, the grammatical lapses are forgivable. You’d lose
your ability to construct a sentence too if you sensed the risk as keenly as
Rather does.
The Washington Post called Sinclair’s action “stunning.” Even right-wing
commentators heaped contempt on Sinclair: On her HLN program, conservative
columnist S. E. Cupp compared the newsreaders who appeared in the video
editorials to members of the Heaven’s Gate suicide cult.
But the Sinclair propaganda onslaught is much more troubling than the
unfortunate deaths of a tiny band of crazy people. Isn’t the looming death of
our democracy far more perilous? If anything, criticism of Sinclair has not
gone far enough. Even the corporate overlord’s most stalwart critics haven’t
taken notice of the obvious echoes of the practices of Fox News Channel, which
also airs political commentary on stations seen in hundreds of cities across
the country and also has millions of viewers. My research assistants have
uncovered evidence that CNN and MSNBC are doing the exact same thing. This is a
bipartisan scandal.
Moreover, if you’re revolted by Sinclair’s habit of airing nearly identical
messages on hundreds of stations, you will be even more nauseated to learn that
that Kimmel is airing completely identical political comments on even more
stations than Sinclair owns — the hundreds of ABC affiliates that broadcast his
show every weeknight. Kimmel is so brazen he doesn’t even launder his views by
having zombie-faced local news personalities read out his thoughts on gun
control or health care. He does it himself, and Americans are helpless in the
face of his insidious mind-control efforts, which they can avoid only by not
watching his show.
All of these observers owe much to another perceptive and even-tempered media
analyst, HBO’s John Oliver, who talked about Sinclair on his show Last Week
Tonight this Sunday and noted last year that by his count Sinclair local
newscasts could, after a pending merger, someday reach an average viewership of
2.2 million Americans, adding, “And that is a lot!” Oliver is correct. By the
time Sinclair has finished brainwashing those 2.2 million, there will be only
323.5 million Americans left unsullied by its nefarious ideas.
Yet we haven’t even discussed the staggering nature of the form in which
Sinclair’s editorials were broadcast. My research team has just told me that
they have data proving that canned local-news editorials delivered stiffly by
blank-faced Ron Burgundys were second only to Russian Facebook memes of Jesus
arm-wrestling Satan in influencing the voters to reject the otherwise
inevitable and correct winner, Hillary Clinton, in favor of her evitable and
incorrect challenger, Donald Trump.
Beneath that, though, the actual content of Sinclair’s message is troubling.
Its most jaw-dropping passages read as follows:
We’re concerned about the troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news
stories plaguing our country. The sharing of biased and false news has become
all too common on social media. More alarming, some media outlets publish these
same fake stories . . . stories that just aren’t true, without checking facts
first. Unfortunately, some members of the media use their platforms to push
their own personal bias and agenda to control exactly what people think. . . .
This is extremely dangerous to a democracy. . . . It’s our responsibility to
pursue and report the truth. We understand Truth is neither politically left
nor right. Our commitment to factual reporting is the foundation of our
credibility, now more than ever.
So Sinclair is against media bias, one-sided reporting, and fake news? It
asserts that truth is neither “left nor right”? Preposterous. Judging by the
truth as established by ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, PBS News, NPR News, CNN,
MSNBC, and nearly every newspaper and newsmagazine published in the United
States, the truth is actually quite similar to what the Left believes.
That plays right into the hands of President Trump, who has also said he
doesn’t think the media should run fake news.
Seeking to contain the damage in an interview published in the Baltimore Sun,
Scott Livingston, senior vice president of news for Sinclair, dug himself
deeper into his hole. “We are focused on fact-based reporting,” he said, citing
as examples of fake news the Pizzagate and “Pope Endorses Trump” stories. Such
false narratives “move quickly across social media and result in an
ill-informed public,” Livingston added.
Need I say more? These lunatics are actually taking a stand against false
information. That plays right into the hands of President Trump, who has also
said he doesn’t think the media should run fake news.
Failing to find a pretext to stop Sinclair from completing its merger with
Tribune and buying some 40 additional stations will have consequences unknown.
If Sinclair continues to air whatever content it likes on media properties it
owns, what’s to stop other companies from also airing whatever content they
choose? Newspapers, magazines, and TV networks, as well as groups of local TV
stations, might feel free to publish or air political commentary, some of which
could conceivably have a partisan bias. Whatever will become of this country if
people use the media properties they own to simply say whatever they feel like
saying?