Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/business/media/sinclair-news-anchors-script.html
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FYI, the article seems to be linking to a reupload of the original video for some reason.
This is the original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI
This is the original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI
For anyone interested, I'm always open to PRs for the "Media Literacy for Engineers" doc I put together:
https://github.com/nemild/hacking-engineers
Examples like this are what I include, about how third-parties can manipulate media sources for their own ends.
https://github.com/nemild/hacking-engineers
Examples like this are what I include, about how third-parties can manipulate media sources for their own ends.
Charlie Brooker did an excellent spoof video of the way news is reported. The video is 8 years old (made in 2010) but it still rings true today:
How to report the news:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI
Every TV news report on the economy in one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN2iVe8_Ato
How to report the news:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI
Every TV news report on the economy in one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN2iVe8_Ato
It is important to reinforce the wholesomeness, and trustworthiness, of your brand or product when that product faces the significant risk of potential legislative regulation in light of growing aversion to its decades-long embrace of lies, manipulation, and 'fake news' in the pursuit of ratings and shareholder value.
Sinclair has taken up the mantle of PR Firm to engage in some preemptive damage control. 15 years ago all you had to say was "Fair and Balanced."
Sinclair has taken up the mantle of PR Firm to engage in some preemptive damage control. 15 years ago all you had to say was "Fair and Balanced."
It's kind of sad to see a potentially important discussion here devolve into a: off-topic threads about policy (DACA), or partisan trolling about #fakenews to derail the subject away from Sinclair.
That said, something I'm curious about... how many people still get their news primarily from local tv broadcast in this day and age? And what are the age ranges of those people? Lacking any actual data, I'd suggest by complete conjecture that it's not that many, and they skew much older than the general population. I'd be surprised if anyone under the age of 30 watches local tv news regularly at all.
I know that personally, I watch so little local news that when I do, the cognitive dissonance is kind of jarring. And when do I watch it? Mostly, when visiting my Baby Boomer in-laws...
That said, something I'm curious about... how many people still get their news primarily from local tv broadcast in this day and age? And what are the age ranges of those people? Lacking any actual data, I'd suggest by complete conjecture that it's not that many, and they skew much older than the general population. I'd be surprised if anyone under the age of 30 watches local tv news regularly at all.
I know that personally, I watch so little local news that when I do, the cognitive dissonance is kind of jarring. And when do I watch it? Mostly, when visiting my Baby Boomer in-laws...
So, this explains the creepy video I saw over the weekend, of numerous news stations reciting the same canned speech, verbatim. When I see one station doing it, or similar sentiment from multiple stations in their own words, that might slightly temper my cynicism about the (lack of) objectivity and truthfulness of the news. But when I see shit like this, it only serves to harden my cynicism.
The branding of those stations is the core problem, no?
Says ABC/NBC/Fox - but actually that's just a logo.
Why not have them clearly labeled as Sinclair, then consumer would know. And maybe still be fine with it.
This way it's indeed shady.
Says ABC/NBC/Fox - but actually that's just a logo.
Why not have them clearly labeled as Sinclair, then consumer would know. And maybe still be fine with it.
This way it's indeed shady.
Nothing new. I worked in a newsroom as an intern and most major news stations rely (maybe, relied, it's been a few years) on a tool like ENPS. It's made by the Associated Press and has a "wire" feature where new stories come into. So, e.g., if there was a plane crash, that message would be pushed out to all newsrooms that rely on ENPS.
The news producers were lazy, too. They'd literally take the script that ENPS pushes out, tweak a few words, and put it on air. I was working in a minor midwestern market (Toledo, Ohio). If you watched the evening broadcasts in the same market and nationally, you'd frequently see the same stories and similar verbiage popping up.
Being surprised by a broadcast group like Sinclair was forcing a narrative is like being surprised that the sky is blue. The "news" is highly filtered and easily controlled. To think otherwise is deliberate ignorance.
The broadcasting industry is corrupt and untrustworthy as all hell. My father worked in it at a high level (owning licenses and stations) and he'd frequently come home from trips either stone faced or frustrated beyond belief: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/business/media/22spectrum... (he's the stately looking black fella throwing a fit in this piece).
To trust anything the mass media tells you is to severely handicap your intelligence. Unfortunately, large swats of the general public do exactly that.
/rant
The news producers were lazy, too. They'd literally take the script that ENPS pushes out, tweak a few words, and put it on air. I was working in a minor midwestern market (Toledo, Ohio). If you watched the evening broadcasts in the same market and nationally, you'd frequently see the same stories and similar verbiage popping up.
Being surprised by a broadcast group like Sinclair was forcing a narrative is like being surprised that the sky is blue. The "news" is highly filtered and easily controlled. To think otherwise is deliberate ignorance.
The broadcasting industry is corrupt and untrustworthy as all hell. My father worked in it at a high level (owning licenses and stations) and he'd frequently come home from trips either stone faced or frustrated beyond belief: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/business/media/22spectrum... (he's the stately looking black fella throwing a fit in this piece).
To trust anything the mass media tells you is to severely handicap your intelligence. Unfortunately, large swats of the general public do exactly that.
/rant
What better way to drive home the point that news is bought to influence people, then to buy a bunch of local news channels and use it to tell people that? There is some beautiful symmetry here, even if it was unintentional.
The actual video they talked about is linked on this [1] page... It's mildly haunting to watch...
[1]: https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-americas-largest-local...
[1]: https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-americas-largest-local...
I do see this as a bad thing, but I also know that everyone under 40 gets their news from the web. The target audience for these channels are older people who don't read news online or on mobile phones.
In a way, Sinclair is becoming a TV streaming service.
I sense the badness, but I also think they run the risk of spending a lot of money on a wasted effort.
You can only influence people if they're dumb _and_ watching your news programs. Seems like a dwindling market if you ask me. People already have FOX News and they've reached their ceiling (35% of the population). Sinclair is going to run into the same demographic problem.
In a way, Sinclair is becoming a TV streaming service.
I sense the badness, but I also think they run the risk of spending a lot of money on a wasted effort.
You can only influence people if they're dumb _and_ watching your news programs. Seems like a dwindling market if you ask me. People already have FOX News and they've reached their ceiling (35% of the population). Sinclair is going to run into the same demographic problem.
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. Sinclair is far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC, which is a total joke.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/98079918342580224...
I think it's reasonable to conclude that POTUS likes that Sinclair compels local news anchors to recite scripts that present a favorable impression of, support for, his policies or him personally.
This is the American crony capitalism version of what Putin did with his state media in order to gain and retain control of the country, and destroy his adversaries. Trump won't have to have his adversaries poisoned. He's poisoning the ability for people to triangulate. And near as I can tell this is what people who support him want. They do not want contrary opinions. They want an autocrat.
I think it's reasonable to conclude that POTUS likes that Sinclair compels local news anchors to recite scripts that present a favorable impression of, support for, his policies or him personally.
This is the American crony capitalism version of what Putin did with his state media in order to gain and retain control of the country, and destroy his adversaries. Trump won't have to have his adversaries poisoned. He's poisoning the ability for people to triangulate. And near as I can tell this is what people who support him want. They do not want contrary opinions. They want an autocrat.
A certain conservative radio talk show host has a hobby of stringing together identical-sounding phrases from various sources in the establishment media, as if they all read from the same memo. It seemed certain someone had coordinated their talking points.
Is the Sinclair issue that much different?
Presumably the former example was performed by a group of like-minded individuals operating under some flavor of free will, who arrived at a consensus. But we can't be sure that was the process. They might have been coerced, or merely chose to parrot each other regardless of circumstance, because they found themselves so well aligned.
Sinclair, on the other hand, assumed obedience by virtue of signing the checks.
That said, I don't know if this situation is as scary as it used to be, now that we've had some experience with the power of more monolithic-appearing news sources such as FB and Google.
Is the Sinclair issue that much different?
Presumably the former example was performed by a group of like-minded individuals operating under some flavor of free will, who arrived at a consensus. But we can't be sure that was the process. They might have been coerced, or merely chose to parrot each other regardless of circumstance, because they found themselves so well aligned.
Sinclair, on the other hand, assumed obedience by virtue of signing the checks.
That said, I don't know if this situation is as scary as it used to be, now that we've had some experience with the power of more monolithic-appearing news sources such as FB and Google.
This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.
Isn't this pretty much the case for all corporate media? The narrative is set from the top down, and if anyone strays too far outside the Overton Window, they're punished. Example: Phil Donahue getting fired from MSNBC for speaking against the war in Iraq.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Donahue#MSNBC_program
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Donahue#MSNBC_program
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This is a non issue for my household either way. We cut the cord a year ago and haven't missed the spin doctors and commercial breaks.
You've never seen these kind of videos before? Local news stations have been gutted for at least a decade and they get just about all their non-local content in this way.
Reminds me of when Trump won the Republican nomination-- a gob of stories ran with basically the same theme and spin.
There's no such thing as straight news. It's all spin, one way or the other.
Here's Politico's take on the Trump speech lockstep reaction: https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trump-convention-spee...
There's no such thing as straight news. It's all spin, one way or the other.
Here's Politico's take on the Trump speech lockstep reaction: https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trump-convention-spee...
The interesting thing here is the groupthink believes this methodology is unique to Sinclair.
In my eyes, this is a clear set/spike play. A huge corporation, enabled by their corrupt allies in the FCC, buy up hundreds of "local" stations. They then use the local cred/reputation of these stations to suggest that fake news is rampant on other sources (not controlled by Sinclair). They then tilt the dialogue nation-wide. Meanwhile, the average citizen is unaware that their trusted local anchor is bought/sold, they lack education and resources to educate themselves, and they are pushed further towards whatever dialogue the Sinclair executives are paid to push them towards.
Does anyone from either side of the aisle consider a national corporation owning local stations and forcing scripts down their throat a good thing for the marketplace of ideas?
Does anyone from either side of the aisle consider a national corporation owning local stations and forcing scripts down their throat a good thing for the marketplace of ideas?
Seems like we need to get more people cord-cut immediately...
Last Week Tonight (John Oliver) dove into this last year. It's really frustrating that they can leverage so much political sway under the cover of "news reporting". Then forcing news stations to broadcast this garbage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc
Trump recently took DACA off the negotiating table, announcing it in a tweet, citing a Fox News & Friends segment on 'caravans' of inbound immigrants: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration/trump-say...
The President is watching this same garbage and making policy decisions based on it. Let that sink in for a moment.
The President is watching this same garbage and making policy decisions based on it. Let that sink in for a moment.
Those news anchors were either OK with the contents of the script they were ordered to read, or they were gutless cowards for not resigning or allowing themselves to be fired.
Isn't that the entire model since long of the owners of multiple local news channels? It's a running joke on reddit since so many years.
Why is the part about Sinclair news reporting on "Islamic terror" and "Trump support" singled out. Do they not report on anything else at all? Or is reporting on both this stuff by default a wrong thing to do?
But... looking at the list of stations Sinclair owns[0]... where are the markets that they control all the stations, defined as ABC+NBC+FOX+CBS? I honestly don't see any. Is this more of a concern if they do manage to get all of these, or if the merger with Tribune Media goes through?
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stations_owned_or_oper...