Editorial: The Sinclair Propaganda Machine
Belief:
Christian Story of Jesus's Birth Is a Myth Born of Politics
Rev. Howard Bess
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
Will Our 'Green Jobs' Dollars Help a Ritzy Car Company Open a Toxic Manufacturing Plant?
Seth Sandronsky
DrugReporter:
We Can't Let Politics Keep Trumping Science on Drug Policy
Beth Schwartzapfel
Environment:
A New Outside-the-Beltway Climate Bill Deserves Support; Why Won't Enviros Get Behind It?
David Morris
Food:
The Year in Food: The Biggest Edible News of '09 and Predictions for 2010
Ari LeVaux
Health and Wellness:
How Real Health Reform Was Killed by Politicians Trying to Look 'Moderate'
James Ridgeway
Immigration:
Greyhound Lines Inc. Accused of Racial Profiling
Seth Hoy
Media and Technology:
Moyers, Moore and Maddow are the Most Influential Progressives
Don Hazen
Movie Mix:
James Cameron's Wizardry in 'Avatar' Movie Demands Being Witnessed on the Big Screen
Wajahat Ali
Politics:
Can We Rescue the Republic Before the Dark Politics Take Over?
Kirk Nielsen
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
Men: Invisible Allies in the Struggle for Choice
Claire Keyes
Rights and Liberties:
Nigerian Man Attempted to Blow Up US Airliner
Sex and Relationships:
Sexy Mormons, the Joy of Vibrators and Sticking it to Puritans: 10 of Liz Langley's Best Pieces
AlterNet Staff
Take Action:
G-20 Meetings: Nothing Much Happened in the Suites, and There Was Too Much Punch in the Streets
Laura Flanders
Water:
NASA Report Highlights Need to Retire Drainage Impaired Land in California
Dan Bacher
World:
Israel Declares War on NGOs and Human Rights Groups
Jerrold Kessel, Pierre Klochendler
Set aside "values" and voter fraud for a moment and just take a look at Sinclair Broadcasting Group. If the nation's largest owner of TV stations didn't actually help reelect George W. Bush it wasn't for lack of effort. Their message to America now: Our man won, deregulation will continue and we've only just begun ... to expand.
First a recap, then a fresh glimpse inside Sinclair. Back in April, Sinclair ordered its ABC affiliates not to air an episode of Nightline during which host Ted Koppel planned to simply read the names of the fallen soldiers – around 700 at the time. When pressed to explain this unprecedented move, denounced sharply by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) among others, Sinclair's CEO, David Smith, responded: "ABC is disguising political statements as news content."
In early October, less than a month before "the most important election of our lives," Sinclair brazenly ordered its 62 TV stations (including several in the major swing states of Ohio and Florida) to preempt regular programming to air, just days before the election, a documentary attacking John Kerry.
Not only was the documentary, "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," created by a Bush family friend, but it was filled with demonstrable lies.
Yet Sinclair's VP, lobbyist and one of the nation's most high-profile conservative commentators, Mark Hyman, responded (reportedly with a straight face): "This is a powerful story... The networks are acting like Holocaust deniers and pretending [the POWs] don't exist."
Former FCC chairman Reed Hundt, not quite your average flaming liberal, was flabbergasted: "Ordering stations to carry propaganda? It's absolutely off the charts." Even Sinclair's own Washington bureau chief, Jon Leiberman, called it "biased political propaganda, with clear intentions to sway this election." He was promptly fired.
Those incidents have been publicized. What goes on in Sinclair's daily operations, however, is something many of us know little about.
"More Aggressive Than Fox"
For starters, a single studio at Sinclair's home office in suburban Maryland, known as "NewsCentral," creates news segments which are then mixed with live broadcasting at the 62 stations to create the "illusion of local news," as Paul Schmelzer put it in an AlterNet article from late October. He went on: "In some cases, personnel at the local station have to coach on-air personalities at Sinclair central casting on tough regional pronunciation of town names."
The Sinclair story reads like a cautionary tale about media consolidation. The centralized and hierarchical structure allows a tiny editorial team in Maryland to fundamentally control the news that reaches nearly 25 percent of the American audience. The product, says media critic Jay Rosen, is "more aggressive than Fox News Channel."
Or, straight from the horse's mouth, ex-Washington bureau chief Lieberman: "(N)ewsroom leaders (at the encouragement of Hyman) started suggesting pro-administration story ideas. They made sure that every political story had a comment from the Bush administration... But I know in my heart what they're doing is wrong. It's not fair and balanced ... It's pure propaganda, and they're trying to shoehorn what should be a format for editorials or commentary into news,"
It's enough to make Rupert Murdoch blush.
Which brings us to Sinclair's pride and joy, a nightly editorial broadcast called "The Point," produced and delivered by none other than Sinclair V.P. and lobbyist, Mark Hyman. Ironically, these one-minute segments are a shameless attempt, as Sinclair's CEO so eloquently said of Nightline, at "disguising political statements as news content."
Media Matters for America, a New York-based not-for-profit progressive research center, analyzed all segments of "The Point" between Nov. 2 and Dec. 1, and concluded this: "'The Point' contains a steady stream of one-sided anti-progressive and pro-Bush rhetoric that is broadcast without a progressive counterpoint."
Samples from "The Point" bear an uncanny resemblance to Republican talking points:
Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.
Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »
| More News and Analysis: | ||
|
The Year in Food: The Biggest Edible News of '09 and Predictions for 2010 Food: In the battle between Big Ag and Small Food there were notable victories on either side. By Ari LeVaux, AlterNet. December 27, 2009. |
Nigerian Man Attempted to Blow Up US Airliner Rights and Liberties: A young Nigerian man with reported links to Al-Qaeda was under arrest Saturday after trying to blow up a US airlinerv headed for Detroit. Agence France Presse. December 26, 2009. |
Israel Declares War on NGOs and Human Rights Groups Rights and Liberties: One year after its devastating siege of Gaza, Israel's efforts to discredit peace groups have intensified, while settlement activity has expanded. By Jerrold Kessel, Pierre Klochendler, IPS News. December 26, 2009. |
Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.
Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.