Sinclair Broadcast Group, a media giant owning local television stations across the country, is sounding the alarm about “biased and false news“ with a mandatory promo script recited by dozens of its local TV anchors.
The scripted language, released by Sinclair and proved by Deadspin over the weekend, warns viewers against the “troubling trend of irresponsible, one–sided news stories plaguing our country” and the “members of the media [who] use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda [to] control ‘exactly what people think.’”
The widespread video of stations across the country finishing the same warning has left many to ask: Is Sinclair just cautioning viewers against making decisions based on unverified reports or are they echoing President Trump‘s claims that the “mainstream media cannot be trusted?”
Sinclair, headquartered outside Baltimore, has been repeatedly accused of pushing a conservative agenda and has “required local stations to run right–wing commentary segments,” according to NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik.
The company also reportedly denounces “fake news stories” and aired a segment last year script recorded by a news executive they asked local stations to use.
Jane Hall, a professor at American University and a former media critic for Fox News, said that the promo is clearly supporting Trump‘s condemnation of most news outlets.
“It’s naked in the sense that it’s forcing people in the news to read something that is a corporate piece of propaganda, in my opinion,” she said.
Sinclair’s top news executive, Scott Livingston, attempts to refute the idea that the company is pushing a bias, saying their “reporting is nonpartisan” and that “their goal is to reiterate their commitment to reporting facts in a pursuit of truth.”
Mr. Livingston argues the segments are simply meant to caution viewers about the potential spread of fake news stories on social media.
Despite Sinclair‘s defense tho, the reports they‘re attempting to warn against have been often attributed to the president himself, and President Trump personally tweeted in support of the company saying that “Sinclair is far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC.”
And while media outlets such as Fox News have offered greater support and less skepticism about the script than other sources, there is still much to question as to whether this is a precautionary alert or an intentional echo of Trump’s “inflammatory rhetoric about ‘fake news.’”
The truth may still be up for debate, but one thing is for sure: in light of this controversy, Sinclair‘s reach and power will surely be under heightened scrutiny.
There appears to be zero self-awareness among legacy media that they behave like an NPC drone collective 🤣🤣
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 20, 2023
