If you still think FOX News is the center of Trump regime propaganda these days, it's not. Your local Sinclair Broadcasting network affiliate is, and America's trusted neighborhood news outlets are now in the business of playing pro-Trump messages several times a week, including "Terror Alert" broadcasts that are manipulating people through fear in places like Provicence, RI.
The company that owns WJAR-TV is mandating the broadcast of multiple programs favorable to President Donald Trump on the state’s most-watched television station.
Sinclair Broadcast Group, a rapidly growing media company that bought Channel 10 in 2014, produces “must-run” segments and distributes them to its local stations nationwide. They must air during daily news programming, Sinclair executives said.
Sinclair is poised to become the nation’s largest owner of TV stations and, with its recent hire of former Trump aide Boris Epshteyn, viewers can expect to see more of the chain’s political programming.
The practice, which has infused a political flavor into the 68-year-old WJAR’s broadcasts, started quietly there at least a year ago.
Three of the segments have rattled viewers and WJAR’s own news reporters, according to Fletcher Fischer, the business manager and financial secretary of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1228, the union that represents broadcast workers there:
‒ The Terrorism Alert Desk, advertised as a daily news update about terrorist activity.
‒ News pieces from Epshteyn, Sinclair’s chief political analyst.
‒ A clearly labeled opinion show featuring Mark Hyman, a former vice president of the company.
These pieces are fed to Sinclair’s 174 stations in the United States every day.
Sinclair’s insertion of the segments into news programming has been harshly critiqued by Rhode Islanders and national commentators.
Gloria Crist, a 54-year-old actress from Tiverton, says she’s stopped watching the station.
Rep. David N. Cicilline condemned the practice, saying: “Rhode Islanders rely on our local news being produced in Rhode Island, not directed by a national conglomerate for local broadcasters to deliver.”
Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan wrote, “What Fox News is for cable, Sinclair could become for broadcast: programming with a soupçon — or more — of conservative spin.”
And HBO’s John Oliver dedicated a show to what he calls Sinclair’s corporate propaganda.
But Sinclair says it’s providing national commentary to “free up” reporters “to create more local news, which we considered to be squarely in the public interest.”
All while screaming about the "liberal media".
Sinclair mandating what news local stations have to broadcast should disturb the hell out of everyone but if you think Republicans are going to do anything about it, you're mad. Some of the nation's largest local stations are running fake "terror alerts" daily, and believe me, people you know are watching.
Here in Cincinnati, Sinclair owns the CBS and the CW affiliates and the ABC and FOX affiliates in Dayton, as well as the ABC, CBS and CW affiliates in Columbus. If the additional affiliates are approved, they'd have stations in Louisville and Lexington too.
And considering Sinclair is launching a "national investigative news team" to create these right-wing news segments to be played on nearly 225 stations daily, if you think the Democrats being able to get their message out was tough before, wait until two-thirds of the country is inundated by Sinclair's garbage for four years.
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