- Over the weekend, you may have noticed a viral video featuring a smorgasbord of small local TV anchors recording the same exact message across multiple platforms.
The video came from Sinclair Broadcast Group, and they own 193 television stations spanning over 614 channels in 89 U.S. markets.
The promo video itself seems pretty innocuous, until you watch the edited Deadspin video in which the same exact script and message are spliced together and repeated over and over again.
How America’s largest local TV owner turned its news anchors into soldiers in Trump’s war on the media: https://t.co/iLVtKRQycL pic.twitter.com/dMdSGellH3
— Deadspin (@Deadspin) March 31, 2018
Objectively, it’s not a great promo. It comes off as very canned and insincere.
Mainstream media outlets and personalities, expectedly, freaked out over the promo, pointing out how President Trump is weaponizing the media (i.e. Sinclair Broadcast Group) against every other publication and news channel.
Late night host Jimmy Kimmel was one of many who pointed out how what Sinclair is doing is “extremely dangerous to our democracy.”
this is extremely dangerous to our democracy https://t.co/D1T8Z7J2Wn
— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) April 1, 2018
Welcome to the club, Kimmel & Company. Now you understand how damaging media bias can be when it’s passed off as “objective” coverage that paints the current president of the United States in a favorable light.
Under eight years of former President Barack Obama and, arguably, the 18 months of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, it’s hard to ignore that virtually every mainstream media outlet – certainly the most credible ones by today’s standards – carried water for the Democratic Party.
Right now, the shoe is on the other foot. Democrats are mad that their side doesn’t control any branch of government. But they’re wrong, they still have power of the Fourth Estate: the media.
According to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, President Trump’s media coverage was three times more negative than Obama’s during their respective first 60 days in office. Only five percent of the stories covering Trump were positive, compared to 42 percent for Obama.
So yes, criticize the Sinclair Broadcast Group. But don’t let the others off the hook. Neither one should be patsies for the president, regardless of party. No matter how much you like the president, whether it be Obama or Trump, you should always try to hold them accountable for the actions they carry out in office.
