Goebbels Would Envy This Propaganda Machine
...who owns your local network affiliate? If it's Sinclair, beware!
Is this real, or “fake news”?
When I turn on Fox “News” (which I hardly ever do, except out of curiosity about whether they are even covering a story that conflicts with their narrative, and if so, how they are framing it) I know what I am getting — pure right wing, Christian Nationalist propaganda. I don’t expect anything else. I’ve entered the fact-free zone of my own accord with my eyes open.
But when I tune in the local ABC, NBC, or CBS affiliate I expect that I will be presented with straight, factual reporting by a trusted local anchor. I’m more trusting, more…gullible.
Well, that trust might be misplaced. Especially if that local station is one of the 185 owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group.
Media conglomerate Sinclair puts anti-Biden talking points in its anchors’ mouths
Two weeks ago Public Notice published a scoop in which it exposed Sinclair’s collaboration with the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal in which Sinclair stations would cite a WSJ article questioning President Biden’s mental acuity:
Two outlets controlled by right-wing media tycoons are working in tandem to aggressively push specious claims about President Joe Biden's fitness for office to millions of Americans.
On June 4, the Wall Street Journal published a 3,000-word article questioning Biden's mental acuity. The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp, the media conglomerate founded by right-wing billionaire Rupert Murdoch. He stepped down as chairman of the company last year, assuming the role of chairman emeritus. At the time of his retirement, Murdoch promised to continue to be "engaged daily with news and ideas" at the company. (News Corp is now chaired by Rupert Murdoch's son, Lachlan.)
The con was this: the WSJ would produce the article, and Sinclair’s anchors would parrot it…word…for…word. Have a look right here.
Wondering why you haven’t seen or heard more about this? Well, if your local TV or radio station, or even your local paper, is Sinclair-owned, you know why. And they own a lot.
Here’s the list: https://sbgi.net/tv-stations/ . Here’s another list I gleaned. You can check these out to see if your local anchor is a Sinclair propagandist.
This episode was not the first time Sinclair has pulled a stunt like this. Check out this 2018 expose in which multiple anchors at Sinclair-owned stations editorialize against media bias and fake news, as they follow orders to read the assigned right wing propaganda. In these clips from 2018 they are just like Trump — they project their sins onto their opponents.
Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite these folks ain’t.
Going further back to 2004, Sinclair was poised to air a “documentary critical of John Kerry’s anti-war activities” in its entirety before backing off to show only a part of it “after shareholders challenged Sinclair’s plans to air the program, saying the controversial broadcast may hurt their investment.”1
This penetration of local news channels is insidiously dangerous. Many folks who have been convinced by right wing hectoring that there is a “liberal bias” in the news media tend to trust their local news sources — at their peril, it seems, if Sinclair is involved.
“Cancel my subscription.”
I lived right outside Baltimore from 2013 — 2022 and am still not far away. I was a consistent subscriber to the once-renowned Baltimore Sun until last week. I had heard that Sinclair’s top dog David Smith (who lives in Baltimore’s suburbs) had bought The Sun along with Armstrong Williams and was watching to see if and how the paper would change…my trial period ended when I learned of the WSJ-parroting episode described above. I called to cancel my subscription and was asked why. “I simply cannot provide revenue to an enterprise associated with Sinclair,” I told the customer service rep. “I understand,” he said.
Sinclair will not air entire anti-Kerry film - NBC News, Oct. 20, 2004