The counterpoint could be that news outlets should investigate whether news outlets investigate stories before publishing them before publishing stories claiming that news outlets don’t investigate stories before publishing them.
The Sinclair stations were criticizing fake news. The Washington Post just did an analysis and how much it effected the election.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/04/03/when-does-russian-propaganda-work-and-when-does-it-backfire-heres-what-we-found/
Home grown fake news. Another report by the Washington Post.
The Sinclair stations were forced to read a script condemning the same “fake news” that Trump condemns-any news critical of the Prez and his administration.
That’s not how I understood it.
I saw the statement as a need to return back to professional journalism. Fact check the news before reporting. Research the facts. Do your fucking job.
The Washington Post article on home grown fake news is very interesting. There’s too much of that out there. It gets read and reposted repeatedly.
It’s gotten so bad that there are very few sources I trust. Washington Post is still the best.
YMMV
Mileage? We’re not even on the same road, man.
They don’t appear to have been forced since at least one of them didn’t.
MSNBC did a little montage showing the companies talking head droids reciting the Sinclair Pledge of Allegiance. It was priceless. All 20 of them in step as they recited the pledge like youth at a Hitler Youth meeting. It was really eye-opening. But then, with the internet, who needs local TV news?
Have you done any research on The Sinclair Group? Getting the story straight is not on their agenda, but sucking up to Trump is. Check out the “Bottom Line With Boris” reports the Sinclair stations are forced to air during their news segments-pure Trumpian propaganda.
That’s one so far, and we haven’t seen Sinclair’s reaction yet.
This sits really well beside that other thing happening in the US atm, net neutrality?
I am shocked and dismayed by this. I’m certainly old enough to remember the consummate journalist Walter Cronkite anchoring the CBS news in the 60’s and it is my recollection that he ad libbed his news stories, never working from a prepared script. “Just go out there and wing it.” they’d tell him.
Of course, it was the 60’s, and some things I remember are more accurate than others.
Are you under the impression that Cronkite was ordered to read scripts written by the owners of his company, owners who were supporters of the sitting president?
The power flow was in the opposite direction, if anything. Cronkite commented on the Tet Offensive in Vietnam:
Yes, to be clear, Cronkite and his staff wrote their own scripts and they took pride in answering only to CBS News without interference from their parent entity.
The talking heads on the televised news read the words in front of them. That’s what they’re paid for. That’s why reading a lot of whinging about how unfair it is that they’re given scripts to read gives me agita. Just a tip; those people in the commercials enjoying those products are really just actors paid to sell things. Being upset because the news guy said something to annoy you is like blaming Ronald McDonald for your bad hamburger.
The news is not supposed to be an advertisement for the selling of the President. If you have no problem with what is going on, you have either given up, or you support what is going on.
Maybe it’s different in the US but in the UK the people reading the news wrote it - they’re experienced journalists.
Are you sure they don’t write their pieces?
The relative roles in a TV newsroom can be complicated but it’s rarely the case that on-camera personnel are nothing but talking heads who have no say in what they read.
At smaller local stations, on-camera personnel might research stories and write at least some of their own copy and edit other people’s copy. At larger stations, anchors might also be producers, with the ultimate authority over what goes in a broadcast.
Traditionally, the news department at a station operates independently of the business and entertainment departments. And traditionally a station’s news department, while it might cooperate with other stations in the chain and take joint news feeds, doesn’t take orders from corporate management about what specifically goes in the air.
TV journalists aren’t my favorite kind of journalist and much of what they do is fluff or sensationalistic, but it’s quite unfair to say that they are just talking heads who read what they’re told to read.
Any reasonable news operation understands that the person who appears on camera has his or her reputation in the eyes of the public most directly at stake so his or her conscience as a journalist must be respected.
Dan Rather weighs in
This really was freaking me out, but they’re not in a TON of markets. it’s more spread out then I thought, but still they have presence in important swing states.
CHeck out the map here to see if you’re affected by any of this strategic propoganda: http://sbgi.net/tv-stations/