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Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script

nytimes.com

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Re: Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script

#11

Post by SanFranManDan »

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #5

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

I think the point was that it was true for the national corporate media, but the local stations were somewhat protected until ajit pai allowed Sinclair to start sucking all of them up. Now the problems with MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, etc will pour into the local news stations as well. All local news and national news will be controlled by highly concentrated oligopolies. These past years we are seeing much more concentration of something that was already concentrated.

Re: Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script

#13

Post by robotrout »

alistairSH wrote: post #4
Overtonwindow wrote: post #3

I'm not clear why this is a problem. A corporation asked its broadcasters to make a statement on fake news. This statement sounds similar to others made by other corporate owned networks. Viewers are invited to comment on the website.

The problem is the corporation. Sinclair has it's own political agenda. Forcing anchors across the US to recite something is bad enough, but when that something is of questionable truth, and orchestrated to minimuze Sinclair's own propensity to push its right-ist agenda, it's downright scary.

Local stations are the least of our problems. 232 executives control news to 277 million Americans (from 2012). This was what I hoped the article was about.

http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-...

Re: Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script

#14

Post by rambojazz »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #3

I'm not clear why this is a problem. A corporation asked its broadcasters to make a statement on fake news. This statement sounds similar to others made by other corporate owned networks. Viewers are invited to comment on the website.

- people trust local media

- a single corporation owns a fuckton of those local stations

- the same corporation writes a script to broadcast on every station

- media hosts or journalists can't say "no". Do the job or lose your job. They're not free to report news without bias

- you don't know everything about everything, so you're inclined to trust the news because they're supposed to be neutral and report facts

- ultimately you internalize a biased opinion that was poured down onto you by the will of a handful of shareholders

Why can't you see the problem?

Re: Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script

#15

Post by SonicSoul »

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #5

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

Phil Donahue was not a news anchor. What makes this case different is that this is scripted material posing as real local news as part of basic cable package. Most people will not treat this as crafted message from a corporation, but actual news.

Re: Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script

#16

Post by HugoDaniel »

They most likely had their speeches written by the same person/people/company. It goes like that in most countries: a big media outlet sells pre-made news/opinions to most newspapers which they then only adapt slightly and keep most of the taglines and significant phrasing.

Re: Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script

#17

Post by robotrout »

nsxwolf wrote: post #12

This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.

I agree. 232 people control the news that 277 million americans are allowed to see. ([1] from 2012). Many of us have been pounding this drum for a long time, including Trump himself. I think it is this control at a national level that the Sinclair news anchors were being told to warn people about, but the NYT has flipped the narrative on them, and now they're the bad guys. Genius, but unfortunate.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-...

Re: Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script

#18

Post by ThbTs4wbXC9Qjv »

alistairSH wrote: post #4
Overtonwindow wrote: post #3

I'm not clear why this is a problem. A corporation asked its broadcasters to make a statement on fake news. This statement sounds similar to others made by other corporate owned networks. Viewers are invited to comment on the website.

The problem is the corporation. Sinclair has it's own political agenda. Forcing anchors across the US to recite something is bad enough, but when that something is of questionable truth, and orchestrated to minimuze Sinclair's own propensity to push its right-ist agenda, it's downright scary.

I'm FAR more concerned about national stations like CNN than local Sinclair stations. Just anti-american agenda based news non-stop. Some of us happen to like the country we live in.

Re: Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script

#20

Post by 0x445442 »

alistairSH wrote: post #4
Overtonwindow wrote: post #3

I'm not clear why this is a problem. A corporation asked its broadcasters to make a statement on fake news. This statement sounds similar to others made by other corporate owned networks. Viewers are invited to comment on the website.

The problem is the corporation. Sinclair has it's own political agenda. Forcing anchors across the US to recite something is bad enough, but when that something is of questionable truth, and orchestrated to minimuze Sinclair's own propensity to push its right-ist agenda, it's downright scary.

Yeah, just about as scary as GE, Disney, Time Warner et al. pushing their left wing agendas via CNN, MSNBC/NBC and ABC.

See, everyone can play this game in the Postmodernist world.

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