With coverage of forty percent of American households—after the anticipated approval of currently proposed sales and mergers which are expected to get the rubber-stamp of approval as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was not only rubbishing net neutrality but was also tasked with removing the regulatory hurdles to media dominance in local markets, the Sinclair Broadcast Group has stakes in or outright ownership of some two-hundred thirty television affiliates all over the country (check to see how high the propaganda might be dialled up in your neighbourhood here) and has operated as a conservative ideology-forwarding mouthpiece for some time.
First infamously censoring reporting that did not portray Republican leadership in a flattering light like the broadcast of ABC news anchor Ted Koppel’s reading out of the names of the US soldiers killed in the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq in April of 2004, the group then in October of the same year, just ahead of a presidential election, ordered its stations to play a documentary that characterised the Democratic challenger to the Bush dynasty as a coward during the candidate’s tour of duty in the Vietnam war.
Political bias has continued to influence programming choices and journalism on the local level—surely burying stories deemed inconvenient or problematic and throttling others in line with their agenda if not dispensing with local news altogether. Stations have for the past two years been required to run the political commentary segments of one of the Trump regime’s Svengalis multiple times a day. And now, local news outlets have to make this rather chilling and Orwellian loyalty pledge (supercut above from Deadspin) to combat fake news wherever detected. Read more at the link up top.
