Editorial: The Sinclair Propaganda Machine

[hangloose]

More worrisome than FOX since they are so deceitful in their broadcasting practices (Hangloose)




By Evan Derkacz, AlterNet. Posted December 14, 2004.

Set aside "values" and voter fraud for a moment and just take a look at Sinclair Broadcasting Group. If the nation's largest owner of TV stations didn't actually help reelect George W. Bush it wasn't for lack of effort. Their message to America now: Our man won, deregulation will continue and we've only just begun... to expand.

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In early October, less than a month before "the most important election of our lives," Sinclair brazenly ordered its 62 TV stations (including several in the major swing states of Ohio and Florida) to preempt regular programming to air, just days before the election, a documentary attacking John Kerry. Not only was the documentary, "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," created by a Bush family friend, but it was filled with demonstrable lies.

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For starters, a single studio at Sinclair's home office in suburban Maryland, known as "NewsCentral," creates news segments which are then mixed with live broadcasting at the 62 stations to create the "illusion of local news," as Paul Schmelzer put it in an AlterNet article from late October. He went on: "In some cases, personnel at the local station have to coach on-air personalities at Sinclair central casting on tough regional pronunciation of town names."

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Bill Carter, writing in The New York Times, cited what's known as "the Sinclair payback provision." Sinclair put stockholders at risk in its attempt to become a "king maker." The idea was to support Bush and his crusade to further deregulate media consolidation. After all, Sinclair already engages in questionable practices like having the CEO's mother buy a station in a market where Sinclair already owns the legal maximum of one. And Kerry had promised to halt deregulation.Finally, David Brock of Media Matters, Timothy Karr of MediaChannel.org and Robert Greenwald will hold a press conference to announce the launch of a nationwide campaign aimed at drawing attention to the conservative slant in Sinclair Broadcasting's "The Point" because, as Sinclair has said, "We do not believe political statements should be disguised as news content."

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http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/20743/