The uber-scuzzy Sinclair Broadcast Group

The BBQ Pit
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Couldn’t find in search anything about this topic so please send links if there were any threads, or even an in-depth post, on this. This went down two months ago, so surely there has to be something you folks had to say about it here. In the meantime, to vent:

Thought about posting this in the Fox thread but thought, naw, I need to plant a big Who target on this gaggle of shitvaarks and give them their own personal treatment they deserve. Yeah, there’s some appreciable enough differences between the two media shit-bergs to warrant their own, separate, special TLC - at least Fox (ha I’m already trying to see something “positive” here?) doesn’t require their affiliates to show “must-run” editorial rants from certified grade-A wing-a-dings like Mark Hyman, who is like Alex Jones, but quieter.

Here Hyman looks kinda, I dunno…maybe younger…almost, dare I say, a different dude, than, say, here? I guess he just gained a shitload of weight and hyper-aged, then.

Another “must-run” commentary piece will be from this vat-of-haggis-rejects-cum-robot Boris Epshteyn, a former Trump spokesman who will now actually be Sinclair’s chief political analyst. As the link confirms - what an idiotic can of mashed assholes.

What in the name of Gary fucking Doak are these bozos being imposed on the affiliates?! At least KOMO in Seattle rebelled a couple months ago by giving these dumb-ass “must-runs” only one airing, at four in the morning.:slight_smile:

Another brand of distinction that Sinclair Broadcast Group further trumps over Fox in giving them a good run for their money in trying to bring journalism further down into the murky depths is the liposuction waste called the daily “Terrorism Alert”, just in case paranoia doens’t need to be uselessly drummed up any further.

Just basically wanted to share this grossness for any general comment, so mods - close this right up if you have any links.

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I’ve heard about this, and that the “must run” clips are usually aired at, like 4am.

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These fuckers understand that he who controls the propaganda “message” has the chance to control the masses. It has worked very well with the Fox “News” model. Now they’re just furthering their reach. Scary stuff. I was pleased when I saw John Oliver did an extended piece on Sinclair in one of his recent shows.

I don’t watch local news, so I was surprised to learn that not one but two of my local affiliates are owned by this nasty group. They are in a lot of markets. And no, I don’t expect this administration to do one damn thing about it. Pai is a total piece of shit, doing exactly Trump’s bidding.

Trump is well on his way to getting his Russian-style oligarchy into place. He’s made the appointments of his rich buddies. Now he’s making every effort to control the media and delegitimize every dissenter.

This is how it happens.

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This is the same outfit behind circa.com

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One of the TV stations in my town is owned by Sinclair. I’ve known they were sleaze balls since at least 2004, when they forced all their stations to run an anti-Kerry “Swiftboating” “documentary” (fake news before we really knew the term). It’s a shame, too, because that station had the local reputation as the respected local news source for decades before Sinclair bought them.

I happened to see that “Terrorism Alert” drop-in during their noon news broadcast recently. It was obviously not locally produced, and knowing it was a Sinclair station I wasn’t surprised (particularly with the red background and the ominous “terrorism watch desk” update), but holy cow, they make their biases so clear to anyone with two functioning brain cells. And they’re the sort to critique CNN and the New York Times as fake news? Sinclair, please.

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ok I’m out of the loop - never heard of’em.

Checked’em out and thought they weren’t too alt-righty, if I can somehow extract some rays of sunshine out of this. No idea why I’m trying to be Mr. Positive here.

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I remember them from 1999-2000 when they fought the FCC (and the rest of the broadcast & consumer electronics industry) over the standards for digital HDTV.

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It’s too complicated to easily summarize, so it’s best to read the whole story. But they did a piece accusing the Obama admin’s NSA of domestic spying (that actually began in the Bush admin) that misled a lot of right-wing media into believing that this was a new story being blacked-out by the mainstream media. It wasn’t, the NYT had reported it months earlier, Circa just sort of pretended it was a huge scoop that they dug up so they could spin it as they saw fit. This eventually led to the rare “double correction” at FOX.

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I assume that they then regularly report on right-wing domestic terrorism? If so then sign me up!

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Pretty much. The biggest problem in American politics right now really is the right-wing media, and how trusted it is among a large portion of the electorate who trust no other news sources, and that problem just got a whole lot worse. How the fuck do you fix this?

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I live in LA and watch KTLA. To say it has a top news division is laughable. It doesn’t cover real news apart from local crime weather and lifestyle. It doesn’t do investigative journalism. It doesn’t try to hold local government accountable. Its all style over substance. It went downhill with the death of Hal Fishman.

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Yeah that particular story definitely had circa crapping the bed, but with a number of their other stories I guess my jury’s still out as to how much their bias is skewed - certainly in the comments sections it’s nothing but right-leaning.
Curious if Seattle’s affiilate had to deal with any repurcussions of any sort from Sinclair for airing only one “must-run” at 4 am.

Praying, most likely in vain, that viewers will have a semblance of a fucking brain in their heads so that whenever they see zombie terducken Boris Ephsteyn, they’ll be thoroughly :dubious:.

yeah yeah ok I thought that idea was in vain, then.

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No reason to watch local news, anymore.

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Well, the “real” news has been strangely silent about that mosque bombing. Expect more of the same. But more of it.