Bloomberg News
Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., the nation’s largest owner of broadcast TV stations, is under fire for requiring news anchors at dozens of its local stations to read a segment saying they were concerned about “the troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news stories plaguing our country.”
In the promo, the exact language for which was provided by the parent company, anchors accused national media outlets of publishing “fake stories without checking the facts first.” The script goes on to say these journalists are using their platforms to “push their own personal bias and agenda” and are “extremely dangerous to our democracy.”
There was an immediate backlash to the Sinclair promotions from media watchdog groups, prominent media personalities and news staffers at Sinclair stations, some of whom called the messages propaganda and drew connections between the segments and many of the media criticisms expressed by President Donald Trump.
Sinclair SBGI, -4.15% said in a statement Monday that its promotions serve no political agenda and “represent nothing more than an effort to differentiate our award-winning news programming from other, less reliable sources of information.” The criticisms largely centered around Sinclair’s efforts to force its stations to air attacks against other news outlets. Former Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat who is now a special adviser for Common Cause, in a statement called it “another example of the company masking its editorialized content with trusted local broadcasters.”
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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