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Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script

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

#101

Trump recently took DACA off the negotiating table, announcing it in a tweet, citing a Fox News & Friends segment on 'caravans' of inbound immigrants: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration/trump-say... The President is watching this same garbage and making policy decisions based on it. Let that sink in for a moment.

If you watched the state of the union, you know that Trump made a proposal about DACA that was such a huge compromise to the left, that much of his base raised hell. The left refused that compromise, and refused again, when he asked for DACA and the wall to be addressed in the latest spending bill. Since he has twice been rebuffed on his compromises, he's going the other way. That seems reasonable to me.

I was surprised Democrats didn’t compromise on that, I think they are too focused on making Trump fail at any cost.

I’m all for increased immigration and amnesty, but I’m not in support of open borders, so a compromise for increased border security sounded like good policy to me.

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

#102

Trump recently took DACA off the negotiating table, announcing it in a tweet, citing a Fox News & Friends segment on 'caravans' of inbound immigrants: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration/trump-say... The President is watching this same garbage and making policy decisions based on it. Let that sink in for a moment.

If you watched the state of the union, you know that Trump made a proposal about DACA that was such a huge compromise to the left, that much of his base raised hell. The left refused that compromise, and refused again, when he asked for DACA and the wall to be addressed in the latest spending bill. Since he has twice been rebuffed on his compromises, he's going the other way. That seems reasonable to me.

Basically the opposite happened. There was a congressional compromise the would have given DACA and funding for the border wall then the White House came back demanding additional sweeping changes to legal immigration.

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

#103

Trump recently took DACA off the negotiating table, announcing it in a tweet, citing a Fox News & Friends segment on 'caravans' of inbound immigrants: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration/trump-say... The President is watching this same garbage and making policy decisions based on it. Let that sink in for a moment.

If you watched the state of the union, you know that Trump made a proposal about DACA that was such a huge compromise to the left, that much of his base raised hell. The left refused that compromise, and refused again, when he asked for DACA and the wall to be addressed in the latest spending bill. Since he has twice been rebuffed on his compromises, he's going the other way. That seems reasonable to me.

I remember Trump saying he would sign literally any immigration deal brought to him by a bipartisan group, and when they did what he asked he rejected it, thanks to Stephen Miller. Then Chuck Schumer basically told Trump to name how much he wanted for the wall, which Trump refused to do. Then the government shut down and Trump relished in blaming Democrats.

> The left refused that compromise

Why was a compromised needed again? Every congressperson, R and D, when asked said they supported a permanent DACA fix. Why should Democrats be willing to compromise on something like lowering the number of legal immigrants admitted for something everyone claims they want. Why should the left compromise to fund a useless wall the President insists will be paid for by Mexico? Problem seems to be Republicans don't really want to admit they're in favor of deporting in all-but-legal-status Americans from their home land.

> Since he has twice been rebuffed on his compromises, he's going the other way. That seems reasonable to me.

Sarcasm? That's what's known as cutting off your nose to spite your face, assuming trump was sincere at all about DACA in the first place, which is highly questionable.

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

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Old people [...] vote at higher rates than any other demographic group. Now that one is bound to change. Young people, both in the US and abroad, are discovering the powers of social media and organize to advance their causes. Trump with his backwards, racist and misogynistic rhetoric and his politics mostly serving the old, white, male population provides a perfect enemy figure to rally against. Somewhere on Reddi…

I would flag your post if I could. Your provocative statements are not productive and are off-topic. You are obviously some sort of activist. This is not the place for it. From your bio: " You call it "alt-left", I proudly call it "Antifa".

I'm confused, what's wrong with being anti-fascist? I'm definitely anti-fascist, aren't you?

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

#105

In my eyes, this is a clear set/spike play. A huge corporation, enabled by their corrupt allies in the FCC, buy up hundreds of "local" stations. They then use the local cred/reputation of these stations to suggest that fake news is rampant on other sources (not controlled by Sinclair). They then tilt the dialogue nation-wide. Meanwhile, the average citizen is unaware that their trusted local anchor is bought/sold, th…

How is that any different from major news organizations like CNN with a national reach clearly pushing biased anti-Trump news constantly? It's funny: Trump attacks CNN for being fake, biased news, then CNN responds by focusing all of their negative reporting on Trump, becoming exactly what Trump says they are. People would have had much more respect for CNN if they had stuck to the middle path in the face of Trump's…

Well, for one: CNN isn't getting a sweet new FCC head honcho to shape policy to benefit them. Second: do you understand the difference between a free press and a propaganda machine, right? One goes against the government's views, the other one pushes it.

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

#106
post #56

There are many threats to democracy, but this is not one of them. Audience numbers for local TV news (not to mention national TV news) is shrinking across the U.S. Younger people in particular will not sit down to watch a 30 minute talking-heads newscast stuffed to the gills with car, telecom, and insurance ads. See: https://www.poynter.org/news/new-pew-study-says-local-tv-new...

I think that state-sponsored propaganda is a threat to democracy, no matter how small the audience is. Just look at what's happening in countries like Turkey, where authoritarian figureheads weren't taken seriously because they were "fringe".

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

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of derailing with "you too", can we focus on one thing at a time? National news programs are a separate issue from secretly biased local news.

CNN doesn't stand up and say "we're devoting our reporting resources to all things anti Trump, this is our bias, it's not secret". They simply report the news they choose to report. Just like Sinclair. People watch the news hoping to get an accurate depiction of reality. When only one side of a multifaceted situation is reported on, the depiction becomes distorted. It's never OK to do this, regardless of whose side y…

All news is based. Anyone telling you otherwise (that they are fair and balanced and unbiased) is lying to you. I don't need CNN to explicitly tell me their biases, because they are not my only source of news. It's not CNN's job to make sure i get unbiased news. It my job to make sense of biased news and weave it into a consistent mental model of the world. This let's me do things like watch CNN and Fox News and recognize when they're not telling me the full story. That's the only way to fight this kind of thing.

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

#108
It seems like the issue is a lack of competition, if I don't like what Sinclair is saying I can not watch it, but if they own all the stations then I don't have that choice. The FCC did all this while everyone was distracted with net neutrality, so even if it came up again there the FCC knows how to distract people already. I'm just not sure what I as a viewer/voter can do about except wait for the next election, and even then, there's no guarantee that the candidate who wins is going to do anything about it.

But... looking at the list of stations Sinclair owns[0]... where are the markets that they control all the stations, defined as ABC+NBC+FOX+CBS? I honestly don't see any. Is this more of a concern if they do manage to get all of these, or if the merger with Tribune Media goes through?

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stations_owned_or_oper...

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

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy if you just blindly accept the axioms of one of the groups. You accept the axioms of left wingers, so it doesn't seem scary to you. I'm not a right winger but they could just as easily say: murdering millions of unborn children, robbing us of our right to defend ourselves, denying the right to freedom of association, infringing on our freedom of speech, infringing on our freedom of religion, etc. Those are…

OK now you have to prove that Disney/CNN/etc. is pushing a pro-abortion agenda. Or that they're pushing government to limit your rights to free speech or religion. Where did Disney & CNN say government should limit your rights to free speech & religion?

I am not a conservative so I'm voicing what I understand to be someone else's opinion.

The major media companies including CNN heavily toed the government line that religious groups do not have the right to avoid paying for child murder on religious grounds.

Government funded public universities regularly hassle, cancel, and provide insufficient security for conservative speakers. This is government funded censorship and the media has carefully avoided putting it in those terms because they support the position of censoring conservatives.

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

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they also pretty clearly have a pretty large amount of editorial control over their shows. The case of Phil Donahue indicates otherwise.

Which, again: Phil Donahue was not a news anchor.

Did he discuss news and current events on a television show? If so he can be called a news anchor, or a news presenter. Why are you stressing the semantics if not only to euphemize?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_presenter

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