GQ: How Sinclair Broadcast Group Bent the Rules

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

Chances are you’ve never heard of Sinclair Broadcast Group. Sure, it might be the largest independent owner of television stations in America, an empire of sixty channels spread across thirty-seven cities with a signal that reaches nearly a quarter of the TV-watching public, but even if you happen to receive that signal and watch it every night, getting your Sinclair news and Sinclair weather and Sinclair commentary from a Sinclair station, chances are you’ve still never heard of Sinclair and have no idea you’re watching it. You won’t see the word Sinclair on your screen, and you’ll probably just think you’re watching ABC or CBS or NBC, whichever network you thought you tuned in. Right there on the screen, you’ll see the old familiar logo—a peacock, an eye, the ABC bubble—and the anchors will look the same as ever, and the fact that the station has been purchased by Sinclair will be no more apparent than the fact that twenty or thirty minutes into the program, the real news will suddenly fade to black and Sinclair’s news will take over. It may be a glowing interview with a defense contractor or a fiery commentary on the evils of the French, something brief and punchy lasting two or ten or fourteen minutes, then slipping back into the regular news as quietly as it came. Not so much as a blip or a bleep to let you know that what you just witnessed was not the local NBC or CBS broadcast but just a little insert from the guys who own the station. That’s the goal at Sinclair: to be seen without being seen.

“Propaganda always works better if it seems not to be propaganda—if it seems to be entertainment, or if it seems to be news,” says Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of culture and communication at New York University. “These people want to dominate the public sphere, but they don’t want us to know that.”

http://men.style.com/gq/features/full?id=content_4024&pageNum=2

[PoiBoy]

1. Another link for you...

thanks for posting this... here's a link to a Sinclair watch site...

http://www.stopsinclair.org/index.php

..which has broadened its focus...

http://startchange.org/

:hi:

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

4. Glad to post it

This is truly an extraordinarily comprehensive and eye-opening article, written by Wil Hylton, one of the best journalists working today.

[napi21]

2. So how can you tell if your station is owned by Sinclair?

As far as I know, mine are not, but if they're that sneaky, who knows?

[mrdmk]

5. There is a list at the above website, I do not how accurate it is!

http://www.stopsinclair.org/contact_sinclair.php

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

7. A little out of date

But still fairly accurate, I think!

[Miss Chybil]

3. We're living in the Matrix. nt

[AX10]

6. an important article. Please read this.

:kick:

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. Wasn't Sinclair the ones that broadcast

the Swift Boat Vet crap movie during the election?

[Judi Lynn]

9. Definitely. There were protests around Sinclair stations which only

people on message boards like D.U. knew about, apparently. I heard there was a good crowd around the Sinclair station in Kansas City on a couple of days prior to the running of the anti-Kerry film.

[TygrBright]

10. SINCLAIR "bent the rules!?!" I'm shocked...

...SHOCKED!

sarkily,
Bright

[Bark Bark Bark]

11. Even IMDB Is Reporting This One...Bottom Of The Page, 'Course

Sinclair Employees Claim They Were Ordered To Slant News
Former and current news employees of Sinclair Broadcasting have described the owners' campaign to court powerful conservative legislators who responded by clearing away legal obstacles and thereby allow Sinclair to become the largest owner of TV stations in America. In interviews appearing in GQ magazine, the employees describe how they were subjected to political litmus tests before being hired, how they were ordered to report only "good news" about Iraq, how an interview with President Bush was delivered to stations with orders to replace the image of the interviewer with that of the local anchor, and how stations were required to run a nightly right-wing editorial delivered by Sinclair exec Mark Hyman that once accused the late Peter Jennings of "appearing to favor terrorists over America." (One local producer said that when she used a graphic to identify Hyman's commentary as an "editorial," Sinclair officials ordered her to remove the offending word.) Former Sinclair Reporter Jon Leiberman, who was fired for protesting against a planned anti-Kerry documentary last year (Leiberman says he voted for Bush in both presidential elections) said that Sinclair co-owner David Smith once told him his news reports ought "to look more like Mark's editorials." In addition to providing ideological aid, the GQ article alleges, Smith and his three brothers have reportedly contributed $2.3 million to the campaigns of key Republican Congressmen.

http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2005-11-18/

Hey, Mallard Fillmore: any smug snark about this, piss ant?

[depakid]

12. Sinclair is the poster child for divestment & re-regulation

of the media.

More than any one factor- it's been the mass media's propaganda that's brought the country to this point (with considerable, self-defeating Democratic help, I might add).