When the Sinclair Broadcast Group instructed its news anchors to read from identical scripts decrying fake news, they triggered widespread hysteria as liberals offered over-the-top warnings about “Big Brother” supposedly forcing local journalists to parrot “double speak.” In an overused word, they said it was Orwellian.
Except no, it was no such thing in style or substance. The script was just a mundane promotional spot meant to advertise the trustworthiness of a news outlets. It was branding. The only really Orwellian thing to come out of this entire Sinclair saga, the only thing that actually chills free speech, is the letter Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., sent to a private news company.
Durbin bristles at the idea of a private company telling its employees what to do. “This practice not only compromises the ability of local reporters to serve the unique interests of their viewers,” Durbin writes to Sinclair, “but it undercuts the journalistic integrity of local news anchors who are required to deliver corporate-scripted messages, at times without providing a disclaimer of their source.”
The senator has so much gall that he even pushes the private company to “confirm what Sinclair’s policy is regarding Sinclair produced mandated content” and “to clarify whether there will be employment consequences for personnel at local stations who refuse to deliver the scripted promotional message.”
As a consumer of news with the power to change the channel, Durbin is within his rights to complain. As a U.S. senator with the power to tax, regulate, and destroy, Durbin is way out of line.
While liberals somehow see a political agenda hidden in the Sinclair script, the Durbin letter is the real threat to speech. The short message of the Sinclair script wasn’t propaganda. It was a promise to adhere to the journalistic ethics that everyone from CNN to Fox News espouses, the same principles Durbin promoted during a January Senate floor speech. The subtext of the letter was that if Sinclair didn’t meet his standards, they might find trouble.
When Durbin stood up for journalists, he was doing his job and protecting the free press. But by lecturing a private company, whose owners coincidentally hold political views he finds objectionable, Durbin is the one acting the part of Big Brother.
The First Amendment protects the right of Sinclair to tell its journalists to say whatever they want on air. It also protects the right of those reporters to quit whenever they choose. But no one in D.C., let alone Durbin, has any business asking journalists to justify their editorial decisions.
