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If you’re not familiar with the Sinclair Broadcast Group, check out this post:
John Oliver's Hilarious and Frightening Warning About the Next (and Worse) Fox News
Then check out the John Oliver video, explaining who they are, and what they are doing, and WHY you should care.
In brief, the Sinclair Group wants to buy out your local News Station(s) — as many as they can get their corporate hand on. And their editorial stance is to insist that their local stations run, ultra-right, corporately-produced, conservative news pieces — under the guise of “your local trusted News Team”. Think ”Swiftboat Veterans for Truth“ on a daily basis, and you’ll get the idea; (they didn’t disclose their real origins of their mythology either.)
Well one city, currently on Sinclair’s target acquisition list is St. Louis. And local reporters there are alarmed enough, to be trying to alert their local audience, about the pending “consolidation”. And to raise a under-current of Resistance.
Sinclair’s proposed purchase of Tribune Media is bad news for St. Louis
by Jeffrey Layne Blevins, St Louis Post-Dispatch — July 3, 2017
Sinclair Broadcast Group’s proposed acquisition of Tribune Media is bad news for the principles of localism, diversity and competition in the St. Louis media market. With the purchase of Tribune’s television properties, Sinclair would own and operate three stations in St. Louis, including two major network affiliates: KDNL-TV (an ABC affiliate), KTVI-TV (a FOX affiliate), and KPLR-TV (a CW affiliate).
Why is it bad news? Sinclair, which is headquartered in Maryland, was the architect of the concept of “central casting” by providing pre-packaged news segments (including weather) that were surreptitiously inserted into the local news broadcasts of its owned-and-operated stations across the U.S. All of those local news broadcasts also carried a segment titled “The Point” by one of Sinclair’s corporate executives, Mark Hyman, that provided a politically conservative perspective on public affairs.
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Under current telecommunication law, U.S. broadcasters are currently allowed to reach no more than 39 percent of U.S. television households through their owned-and-operated stations, and current rules would not allow multiple station ownership in certain markets. [...]
However, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has already signaled his willingness to relax media ownership rules further, which would allow Sinclair’s purchase of Tribune to go forward. A similar situation occurred in 2004 when Congress changed the owned-and-operated television station cap to 39 percent after Fox Television Stations, Inc. purchased Chris-Craft Industries’ broadcast properties, exceeding the legal limit at the time of 35 percent.
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Want to know why roughly 39% of citizens, voted for President “Clueless”?
Well, how much of the local news media markets were controlled by the Fox Network at the time — roughly 39%. A corporation that had a broadcast policy: “Say only nice things about Republicans.”
And now the FCC Chairman Ajit Pai (202-418-1000), sees no problems with bumping up that share of Media Market control — even higher, for Sinclair’s proposed Mega-purchase of Tribune.
What is a good round number that the Chairman will sign-off on ... 42% … 45% … 50% ?
Say good-bye to the “diversity of ideas” concept. Say Helllooo, to Fake News on steroids.
If you thought the Foxificaton of America (39%) was bad — just wait till we get a load of the Sinclairfication of America — when local market messaging dominance, becomes “a thing”.
There will be no escaping the conservative-themed BS, if Sinclair VP Mark Hyman ever gets his “must run” Soapbox-way. Fox and Friends staff must be “tuning up” their Resumes, as we speak.