Sinclair Broadcasting's quiet takeover of the entire local airwaves isn't so quiet anymore, and after they launched their incredibly creepy Orwellian pro-Trump message over the airwaves, they've been exposed. The backlash has been so huge that even Fox News has chimed in with the message that even Fox isn't that bad.
“Whatever Fox's shortcomings, and there definitely are some, there's precisely zero editorial direction from above,” one Fox News host told BuzzFeed News. “I've never been told a single time what to say.” Another network insider said the comparison between Sinclair and Fox News was “ludicrous” and that Sinclair anchors in the video “looked like hostage victims.”
Some Sinclair employees would agree with that assessment, with some telling CNN that "they're embarrassed by the promos and concerned about their own credibility as journalists" as a result of being forced to read the promos, and one local employee saying "Everyone is really embarrassed after watching the Deadspin video."
But Sinclair senior vice president of news Scott Livingston is defending the promos as a "well-researched journalistic initiative focused on fair and objective reporting."
In an internal memo obtained by CNNMoney, Livingston slammed what he called "misleading, often defamatory stories" about the company.
Last month, at Livingston's direction, anchors at Sinclair's stations were required to read a script decrying "fake stories" and biased news coverage. Some of the language echoes President Trump's anti-media messaging. And it's written to make it sound like the opinion of the local anchors, when in fact it's a mandate from management.
To hear Livingston tell it, Sinclair is fighting the good fight against Russian bots. "For the record, the stories we are referencing in this campaign are the unsubstantiated ones (i.e. fake/false)," he writes, "like 'Pope Endorses Trump' which move quickly across social media and result in an ill-informed public. … Some other false stories, like the false 'Pizzagate' story, can result in dangerous consequences. We are focused on fact-based reporting. That's our commitment to our communities."
The "fake news" reality is very different, according to employees at the Sinclair station in Seattle. The segments they are forced by the bosses to run include one in which "former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka parroted a Trump talking point regarding the existence of a 'Deep State' attempting to undermine the U.S. government," as well as "segments from Boris Epshteyn, a Russian-born former Trump adviser who now serves as Sinclair's chief political analyst […] with titles like, 'Pres. Trump deserves cabinet and staff who support his agenda, yield successes' and 'Cable news channels are giving way too much coverage to Stormy Daniels.'"
As much as Fox News is Trump's muse, Sinclair is Trump's mouthpiece. It's his FCC that could put the Trump message—including his fake news—in something like 72 percent of the nation's households. It's the FCC that could stop it by rejecting Sinclair's acquisition of Tribune media stations. Given the fact that FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is already under investigation for a pro-Sinclair decision on ownership rules, and that he's refusing to recuse himself on this decision, it probably won't.