Updated Jan. 16, 2020
I live in Portland where we have three local stations: KOIN, KGW, and KATU. The later is one of 294 stations owned or operated by the far-right Sinclair Broadcasting Group. You can check to see which stations are owned by them in your area here.
Yesterday I had a reason to try to dissuade an organization from advertising on KATU.
Not everyone knows that the local station they may watch for local news is tainted by the right-wing bias of the corporation which owns them.
Here’s some information about this company:
Sinclair Broadcasting Group is the largest owner of local television news stations in the United States. It currently airs original programming on 193 channels throughout the country, enough to reach 39 percent of all American homes.
The company is also owned by a longtime Republican donor, and proudly operates as a platform for conservative propaganda. Sinclair formally promised to provide favorable coverage to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign(in exchange for access to the GOP nominee). Since the mogul’s election, the media giant has ordered all of its affiliates to air commentary that advances White House talking points, and coerced their own anchors into personally reporting that the mainstream news media is biased against the president.
Here’s an article in The Washington Post from 2018 says that
Excerpt: In recent weeks, news anchors at local TV stations across the country have warned Americans about the “sharing of biased and false news” and the threat “fake stories” pose to democracy. As a recent video revealed, reporters recited word for word the same script bearing this warning.
What do these stations have in common? They’re all owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, the largest television station conglomerate in the United States.
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Critics have claimed that Sinclair — a company with close ties to the Trump administration and conservative politicians— is pushing its stations away from local coverage and toward a partisan brand of political reporting on national politics.
In new research, we find evidence that that appears to be the case. Stations bought by Sinclair reduce coverage of local politics, increase national coverage and move the ideological tone of coverage in a conservative direction relative to other stations operating in the same market.
Here's one of the more recent articles, from Oct 27, 2020:
There have been articles about this in 2018 in The Washington Post and The New York Times and elsewhere. These require a subscription to read. For example in The NY Times fro 2018.
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Excerpt:
President Trump responded to scrutiny of the broadcaster on Monday in a tweet.
“So funny to watch Fake News Networks, among the most dishonest groups of people I have ever dealt with, criticize Sinclair Broadcasting for being biased,” he said.
In a statement on Monday, Scott Livingston, Sinclair’s senior vice president of news, called the backlash “ironic,” and said the stations “keep our audiences’ trust by staying focused on fact-based reporting and clearly identifying commentary.”
Sinclair Broadcast Group is not as well-known a name in television as Fox News's News Corp. or CNN's Turner Broadcasting System, but its reach may rival that of a cable juggernaut.
Here's an article from The Advocate, the premier LGBT website and Magazine.
Sinclair’s must-run commentaries generally don’t put LGBT people in the cross hairs, Suen says, but there have been some. In a commentary last October, Hyman parroted many of the talking points used by anti-LGBT organizations objecting to being designated “hate groups” but the Southern Poverty Law Center, a progressive nonprofit.
The commentary “took issue with SPLC’s designation of some ‘Christian ministries, think tanks and public interest law firms’ as hate groups, giving an innocuous veneer to groups such as the rabidly anti-LGBTQ Liberty Counsel,” Media Matters reported last fall. “The segment said SPLC’s inclusion of those groups in a list of hate groups that includes ‘the Klan and skinheads … raises serious questions,’ echoing an argument repeatedly made by hate groups and right-wing media.” Some other segments have shown an anti-transgender bias, and Sinclair has editorialized against the California law mandating that public schools teach LGBT history, Suen says.
This goes back to 2017:
This is from Media Bias Fact Check:
These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward conservative causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage conservative causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy. See all Right Bias sources.
- Overall, we rate Sinclair Broadcast Group Right Biased based on political affiliation with the Republican Party and the direction of network news programming. We also rate them Mixed for factual reporting due to airing news shows with poor fact check records.
My recommendation to anyone who has another choice for access to local news is not to watch a Sinclair owned station. If it is the only one available in your area you may be able to find another station that covers local news in your area, or certainly state news, online.
If you are in a position to make advertising buys on a Sinclair owned station I would urge you to find a place to spend your funds where they won’t subsidize a right-wing corporation.
Watching Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell last night I was surprised to see commercials for the Portland, Oregon ABC station owned by the right-wing Trump supporting Sinclair Broadcast Group.
I didn't remember seeing them previously though I could be wrong. Maybe this is old news and maybe it’s new news.
You remember that this is the company that received lots of publicity when it came out that they were requiring new anchors to support Trump by reading the same exact script.
Watch the amazing video of clips first shown by the sports website Deadspin here — if you watch MSNBC you will probably remember seeing it.
How America's Largest Local TV Owner Turned Its News Anchors Into Soldiers In Trump's War On The Media — Deadspin
Earlier this month, CNN’s Brian Stelter broke the news that Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner or operator of nearly 200 television stations in the U.S., would be forcing its news anchors to record a promo about “the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country.” The script, which parrots Donald Trump’s oft-declarations of developments negative to his presidency as “fake news,” brought upheaval to newsrooms already dismayed with Sinclair’s consistent interference to bring right-wing propaganda to local television broadcasts.
You might remember Sinclair from its having been featured on John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight last year, or from its requiring in 2004 of affiliates to air anti-John Kerry propaganda, or perhaps because it’s your own local affiliate running inflammatory “Terrorism Alerts” or required editorials from former Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn, he of the famed Holocaust Remembrance Day statement that failed to mention Jewish people. (Sinclair also owns Ring of Honor wrestling, Tennis magazine, and the Tennis Channel.) CONTINUED
I wonder about the rationale behind this ad campaign considering that there was critical, and often mocking, publicity about this everywhere in the media with the exception of their own stations, rightwing websites, and Fox News. If there ever was a group of viewers less likely to respond positively to a commercial it's those who watch MSNBC. Do they think we have such a short memory span?
I recall that there were several stories about this on Daily Kos, “Sinclair Broadcasting's plan to take over local news should frighten us all to coverage on MSNBC,” by Kerry Eleveld for example, and of course, it was covered on MSNBC, below:
The story was covered in Portland about their station, KATU.
“Sinclair-KATU controversy raises the question: Will political divides invade local TV news?” From OregonLive
In an increasingly divided age, with commentators offering partisan opinions on cable TV, online and over the radio, local TV news has generally remained a politically neutral zone.
But the controversy surrounding Sinclair Broadcast Group, the Maryland-based company that owns more than 190 local TV stations around the country - including Portland's ABC affiliate, KATU-TV -- has focused attention on politics infiltrating local news coverage.
Media ethics experts have already noted that Sinclair Broadcast Group policies reflect a conservative agenda, including requiring Sinclair-owned stations to air commentaries by Boris Epshteyn, a former aide to president Donald Trump whose opinion pieces support Trump's decisions.
Concerns about the Sinclair Broadcast Group's relationship to its local TV stations grew more heated over the weekend, as a viral video made by the sports website Deadspin made the rounds.
Until this revelation about Sinclair, I followed local news online from the three Portland stations. When it came out I deleted the link to KATU from my bookmarks. Fortunately, there are two other stations, KOIN and KGW here. Comments on the Daily Kos articles showed that some Kossacks in less populous areas were not so lucky and that they counted on a Sinclair owned station for local news reports.
I don’t know if this was a strictly local ad buy just to be broadcast in Portland on MSNBC, or if it is nationwide. It would be curious if the ads are just in Portland because it is a very liberal city. If the same ads are showing on other local stations. If it is national, weigh in with your speculation of the corporation’s rationale for advertising on the only liberal cable station.
The poll below will give us an idea how widely the ads are being shown and commenters can weigh in as to whether they live in a liberal or conservative area if they have seen the ads.