Sinclair Broadcasting brings 'troubling' rightwing bias to local news

[Telamon]

Most Americans don’t know it exists. Primetime US news refers to it as an “under-the-radar company”. Unlike Fox News and Rupert Murdoch, virtually no one outside of business circles could name its CEO. And yet, Sinclair Media Group is the owner of the largest number of TV stations in America.

But that is beginning to change. Sinclair’s size, rightwing politics and close connections to Donald Trump’s White House are starting to attract attention. Democrats are wading in to the fray and demanding answers over Sinclair’s close ties to the Trump administration, which, they say, could mean the group is getting preferential treatment.

The New York Times refers to the group as a “conservative giant” that, since the Bush presidency, has used its 173 television stations “to advance a mostly right-leaning agenda”. The Washington Post describes it as a “company with a long history of favoring conservative causes and candidates on its stations’ newscasts”.

The growing anxiety in America over the rise of Sinclair stems from the belief the company’s close connections to Trump have allowed it to skirt market regulations. Already the biggest broadcaster in the country, Sinclair is poised to make its biggest move yet. If the FCC approves Sinclair’s $3.9bn purchase of an additional 42 stations, it would reach into the homes of almost three-quarters of Americans.

Another cause for concern, and increased scrutiny, is what’s seen as the company’s pronounced political agenda. Sinclair forces its local stations to run pro-Trump “news” segments. In April, they hired Boris Epshteyn, a former Trump campaign spokesman and member of the White House press office, as its chief political analyst. His “must-run” 10-minute political commentary segments unsurprisingly hewed closely to the Trump administration’s message. The news and analysis website Slate, referring to Epshteyn’s contributions, said: “As far as propaganda goes, this is pure, industrial-strength stuff.”

John Oliver expanded further:

The Last Week Tonight host then showed several examples of typical Sinclair broadcasts, which lean “noticeably conservative” and even conspiratorial in nature.“If the opinions were confined to just the commentary or the ad breaks, that would be one thing. But Sinclair can sometimes dictate the content of your local newscasts as well, and in contrast to Fox News, a conservative outlet where you basically know what you’re getting, with Sinclair, they’re injecting Fox-worthy content into the mouths of your local news anchors, the two people who you know, and who you trust, and whose on-screen chemistry can usually best be described as two people.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/20...breitbart-news

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-r...twing-news-fox

It's no secret that certain news networks have certain political leanings. But the nebulous nature of Sinclair and the local news station it owns is worrying, especially considering its apparent ability to expand without the required regulatory oversight. From what I understand, local news should be more concerned with covering, well, local news, and possessing balanced coverage. Having 'must-run' pro-Trump political segments and reporting on anti-liberal fake news seems an awful lot like actual propaganda.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

>90% of mainstream media leans left.
This is fine.

>Some local news are leaning right
THIS IS PROPAGANDA!

[mishkin]

>90% of mainstream media leans left.
This is fine.

Thats fine, and just your point of view. I'm afraid some part of the population will disagree with you

[Telamon]

>90% of mainstream media leans left.

Source?

>Some local news are leaning right

Sinclair is the largest television operator by total coverage, it is not 'some'.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

Source?



Sinclair is the largest television operator by total coverage, it is not 'some'.

Mainstream media bias in the US is a pretty well known fact, I'm surprised you would even ask for sources. Let's look at coverage on Trump, for example, since that's what you chose to prove media bias in favour of the right.

Fox, which is usually considered the most right leaning of the mainstream media, is actually the closest to being somewhat balanced.

Thats fine, and just your point of view. I'm afraid some part of the population will disagree with you

That's fine, because the majority will agree.

[mishkin]

That's fine, because the majority of americans will agree.

(USA, where Bernie Sanders is considered a satanic communist).

[nhytgbvfeco2]

(USA, where Bernie Sanders is considered a satanic communist).

Well, this thread IS about media bias in the USA. I fail to see the relevance of non American news outlets, and the people that consume them, to this thread. I'll have you know that some people in Zimbabwe disagree with you.

[the_mango55]

Mainstream media bias in the US is a pretty well known fact, I'm surprised you would even ask for sources. Let's look at coverage on Trump, for example, since that's what you chose to prove media bias in favour of the right.

Fox, which is usually considered the most right leaning of the mainstream media, is actually the closest to being somewhat balanced.

How does this graph determine "tone" of news coverage?

Also if there is more negative news than positive news to report then trying to maintain a balance would actually be biased.

Edit: I'd also like to know the time frame of this graph, as Fox was mostly anti-trump during the primaries but mostly pro Trump now.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

How does this graph determine "tone" of news coverage?

Also if there is more negative news than positive news to report then trying to maintain a balance would actually be biased.

Edit: I'd also like to know the time frame of this graph, as Fox was mostly anti-trump during the primaries but mostly pro Trump now.

The time frame is first 100 days of presidency. They also compared it to the first 100 days of some other presidents (obama, bush, clinton).
You can read some more about it here: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-0...ump-media-bias

[sumskilz]

Source?

I'll throw this on the pile:

Few studies provide an objective measure of the slant of news, and none has provided a way to link such a measure to ideological measures of other political actors.That is, none of the existing measures can say, for example, whether the New York Times is more liberal than Tom Daschle or whether Fox News is more conservative than Bill Frist. We provide such a measure. Namely, we compute an ADA score for various news outlets, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Drudge Report, Fox News’ Special Report, and all three networks’ nightly news shows.

Our results show a very significant liberal bias. All of the news outlets except Fox News’ Special Report received a score to the left of the average member of Congress.Moreover, by one of our measures all but three of these media outlets (Special Report,the Drudge Report, and ABC’s World News Tonight) were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than to the median member of the House of Representatives. One of our measures found that the Drudge Report is the most centrist of all media outlets in our sample. Our other measure found that Fox News’ Special Report is the most centrist.These findings refer strictly to the news stories of the outlets. That is, we omitted editorials, book reviews, and letters to the editor from our sample.

To compute our measure, we count the times that a media outlet cites various think tanks. We compare this with the times that members of Congress cite the same think tanks in their speeches on the floor of the House and Senate. By comparing the citation patterns we can construct an ADA score for each media outlet...

One of the most curious and surprising statistics in all of American politics is that an overwhelming number of journalists are liberal. For instance, Elaine Povich (1996) reports that only seven percent of all Washington correspondents voted for George Bush in 1992, compared to 37 percent of the American public.1 Lichter, Rothman and Lichter, (1986) and Weaver and Wilhoit (1996) report similar findings for earlier elections.

The reason this statistic is curious and surprising is that many consider the media the watchdog of government, sometimes calling it the “Fourth Branch of American Government.” If so, it is by far the least representative of the branches. These statistics suggest that journalists, as a group, are more liberal than almost any congressional district in the country. For instance, in the Ninth California district, which includes Berkeley,twelve percent voted for Bush, nearly double the rate of journalists. In the Eighth Massachusetts district, which includes Cambridge, nineteen percent voted for Bush, more than triple the rate of journalists. In the 14th California district, which includes Palo Alto, 26 percent voted for Bush, more than four times the rate of journalists...

Although we expected to find that most media lean left, we were astounded by the degree. A norm among journalists is to present “both sides of the issue.” Consequently,while we expected members of Congress to cite primarily think tanks that are on the same side of the ideological spectrum as they are, we expected journalists to practice a much more balanced citation practice, even if the journalist’s own ideology opposed the think tanks that he or she is sometimes citing. This was not always the case. Most of the mainstream media outlets that we examined (ie all those besides Drudge Report and Fox News’ Special Report) were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than they were to the median member of the House.

A Measure of Media Bias

EDIT: Now it's interesting that only 7% of all Washington correspondents voted for George Bush in 1992 since it matches the only 7% of journalists who identified as Republicans in 2013. Although a lot of journalists consider themselves independents, but let's see who they make their political donations to. Oh, looks like ~89% of those donations were to Democrats or liberal political causes.

[Telamon]

@ Nhy

Perhaps you should have actually read the study the article is quoting as it doesn't actually prove your suggestion that 90% of the media is left leaning, but simply that media coverage of Trump has been overwhelmingly negative. Why was it overwhelmingly negative? The study suggests some reason:

Have the mainstream media covered Trump in a fair and balanced way? That question cannot be answered definitively in the absence of an agreed-upon version of “reality” against which to compare Trump’s coverage. Any such assessment would also have to weigh the news media’s preference for the negative, a tendency in place long before Trump became president. Given that tendency, the fact that Trump has received more negative coverage than his predecessor is hardly surprising. The early days of his presidency have been marked by far more missteps and miss-hits, often self-inflicted, than any presidency in memory, perhaps ever.

If a mud fight with Trump will not serve the media’s interests, neither will a soft peddling of his coverage. Never in the nation’s history has the country had a president with so little fidelity to the facts, so little appreciation for the dignity of the presidential office, and so little understanding of the underpinnings of democracy. The media’s credibility today is at low ebb, but the Trump presidency is not the time for the press to pull back. The news media gave Trump a boost when he entered presidential politics. But a head-on collision at some point was inevitable. It’s happened, it isn’t pretty, and it isn’t over.

I'll throw this on the pile:
A Measure of Media Bias

This study is from 2005, I'm not sure how relevant it is to a discussion on current day media bias when we have the likes of Breibart and the aforementioned Sinclair, especially since it seemingly omits editorials and opinion pieces.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

@ Nhy

Perhaps you should have actually read the study the article is quoting as it doesn't actually prove your suggestion that 90% of the media is left leaning, but simply that media coverage of Trump has been overwhelmingly negative. Why was it overwhelmingly negative? The study suggests some reason:





This study is from 2005, I'm not sure how relevant it is to a discussion on current day media bias when we have the likes of Breibart and the aforementioned Sinclair, especially since it seemingly omits editorials and opinion pieces.

Those are their opinions, not facts. The facts are that is mainstream media has been overwhelmingly anti-Trump.
Your OP claims that running positive news on Trump is propaganda, yet you fail to address that said pro trump news might be justified.
What news sources would you consider mainstream? Because from my knowledge as an outsider, mainstream American news are: WSJ, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, NYT, washington post and NBC. All of those except Fox are very biased towards the left. Even WSJ, which was slightly less biased according to the data I provided, is the very same network that ran the story on Pewdiepie being a Nazi.

His data may be old, but the situation is still very much the same. https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016...-campaign-cash
96% Of money donated by Journalists to a candidate was donated to Clinton.

[sumskilz]

This study is from 2005, I'm not sure how relevant it is to a discussion on current day media bias when we have the likes of Breibart and the aforementioned Sinclair, especially since it seemingly omits editorials and opinion pieces.

I edited my post before seeing this, adding some more, some more recent. The number of studies are limited, but the pattern is consistent. The more recent rise of Breibart might skew things a bit, but I suspect there was a niche for them precisely because of the mainstream media's consistent left wing bias over the years. Perhaps the market is finally fulfilling everyone's confirmation bias needs.

Even WSJ, which was slightly less biased according to the data I provided, is the very same network that ran the story on Pewdiepie being a Nazi.

Just making a pathetic mockery of themselves.

[Telamon]

Those are their opinions, not facts. The facts are that is mainstream media has been overwhelmingly anti-Trump.

Well yes, opinion is used to interpret facts. The interpretation the study has provided is that media coverage of Trump has been negative partly because of his own doing, not because of left-leaning media bias.

Your OP claims that running positive news on Trump is propaganda, yet you fail to address that said pro trump news might be justified.

This is a strawman. My post did not claim that running positive news on Trump is propaganda, it suggested that having Boris Epshteyn, a former Trump campaign spokesman and member of the White House press office and now Sinclai's chief political analyst, forcing local networks to air “must-run” 10-minute political commentary segments that were very similar Trump's views, as potential propaganda.

https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016...-campaign-cash
96% Of money donated by Journalists to a candidate was donated to Clinton.

This is misrepresentative as the majority of major news outlets do not allow political donations from their journalists, as your article states.

Almost any U.S. citizen or foreign national with a U.S. green card may, by law, give money to a federal political candidate.

But major news organizations often restrict, if not prohibit, their journalists (and occasionally non-journalist employees) from making political campaign contributions.
The news organizations’ overriding concern: Such contributions will compromise journalists’ impartiality or seed the perception that journalists are biased toward certain politicians or political parties.

The New York Times’ ethics handbook declares that its staffers may not give money to, or raise money for, political candidates or election causes. “Any political giving by a Times staff member would carry a great risk of feeding a false impression that the paper is taking sides,” it reads.

The Associated Press is even more blunt with its journalists, stating that “under no circumstances should they donate money to political organizations or political campaigns.”
CNN spokeswoman Bridget Leininger said the cable network “does not allow editorial staff to contribute to candidates or political parties.”
A review of several dozen newsroom ethics policies indicates many other notable news outlets have similar no-political-donations mandates, including The Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, ProPublica, San Antonio Express-News, The Seattle Times and Tampa Bay Times. (The Center for Public Integrity’s staff handbook states that all employees are “prohibited from engaging in political advocacy or donating to political candidates at any level of government.”)

And while some journalists do give politicians money, the vast majority do not.

EDIT: Now it's interesting that only 7% of all Washington correspondents voted for George Bush in 1992 since it matches the only 7% of journalists who identified as Republicans in 2013. Although a lot of journalists consider themselves independents, but let's see who they make their political donations to. Oh, looks like ~89% of those donations were to Democrats or liberal political causes.

As above, it does seem like the majority of the major organisations prohibit political donations, at least when the journalist concerned is involved in covering politics. Indeed, the majority on that list seem to cover other topics that would not necessarily be indicative of the organisation's political bias.

In any case, I'm not suggesting there is no left-leaning media bias. The issue is that former members of Trump's team are having undue influence on news coverage, as well as Trump's regulatory appointees further expanding this influence:

The manner in which Sinclair looks set to expand – specifically, with Trump paving the way – is causing widespread anxiety throughout media and political circles. The focus of the concern is Ajit Pai, the man Trump appointed as head of the country’s top broadcasting regulator, the FCC.


Since he began work in January, Pai has been busy relaxing the protections for local broadcasting that had previously limited Sinclair’s expansion.


Trump’s new-look FCC has moved swiftly to clear the hurdles for Sinclair’s proposed takeover of Tribune. A day before Trump was inaugurated, Smith invited Pai to a meeting at the Washington-area headquarters of the company’s ABC affiliate. Within 10 days of taking over the FCC, a New York Times investigation found, Pai had already relaxed a restriction on TV stations’ sharing of resources, including ad revenue – precisely the topic Smith had met with Pai about.


Since January, the Times report found, “Pai has undertaken a deregulatory blitz enacting or proposing a wishlist of fundamental policy changes advocated by Mr Smith and his company.”
Tom Wheeler, Pai’s predecessor at the FCC, who is now at the Brookings Institution, said: “What’s surprising is how fast the Trump FCC moved and how they moved without any real opportunity for public comment and without any following of procedural due process ... So you look at that kind of behavior and scratch your head.”

[gradeAhaze]

>90% of mainstream media leans left.
This is fine.

>Some local news are leaning right
THIS IS PROPAGANDA!

Oh and I'm sure you don't consider "Trump TV," which not only pushes forth his brand but only mentions positive half truths of things the "great leader" Trump has done, propaganda either. Trump and people supporting him are attempting to saturate the airwaves with as much pro trump propaganda as possible.

but seriously watch the Trump TV broadcasts on YouTube and tell me with a straight face they aren't propaganda. Many of the talking points on that show are exactly the same as these mandatory 10 minute political segments from Sinclair group are.

[Heathen Hammer]

So CNN is pretty massive (for now at least), where is all the outrage about their bias?

[TheLeft]

So CNN is pretty massive (for now at least), where is all the outrage about their bias?

Ahhh... Whataboutism. The final bastion of a man without a cogent argument.

[the_mango55]

So CNN is pretty massive (for now at least), where is all the outrage about their bias?

I see outrage about their supposed bias all the time from the right. What do you mean "where is it?"

[nhytgbvfeco2]

Well yes, opinion is used to interpret facts. The interpretation the study has provided is that media coverage of Trump has been negative partly because of his own doing, not because of left-leaning media bias.

And you honestly think that that justifies 93% negative coverage?
Sure, but facts are factual, while opinions are not. Their own interpretation is up to debate, while their actual findings are not.

This is a strawman. My post did not claim that running positive news on Trump is propaganda, it suggested that having Boris Epshteyn, a former Trump campaign spokesman and member of the White House press office and now Sinclai's chief political analyst, forcing local networks to air “must-run” 10-minute political commentary segments that were very similar Trump's views, as potential propaganda.

So long as it is not committed by the government, it is not propaganda. A private company can air whatever it wants to, and make whatever it owns air whatever it wants to. The government telling them what they can and can't air would be a breach of the first amendment. If it bothers you, don't consume those news, just like how the right does not watch CNN.

This is misrepresentative as the majority of major news outlets do not allow political donations from their journalists, as your article states.

Yeah, I'm sure CNN reporters would have donated to Trump if only they had the chance.

Oh and I'm sure you don't consider "Trump TV," which not only pushes forth his brand but only mentions positive half truths of things the "great leader" Trump has done, propaganda either. Trump and people supporting him are attempting to saturate the airwaves with as much pro trump propaganda as possible.

but seriously watch the Trump TV broadcasts on YouTube and tell me with a straight face they aren't propaganda. Many of the talking points on that show are exactly the same as these mandatory 10 minute political segments from Sinclair group are.

Since when is this a mainstream media? It's a small youtube channel with 90k subscribers. And you are comparing it to TV news networks with views in the millions? Obviously something named Trump tv is going to be biased in favour of trump. The mainstream media claims to be unbiased however.

[Heathen Hammer]

Ahhh... Whataboutism. The final bastion of a man without a cogent argument.

Pointing out lack of consistency isn't whataboutism.