Sinclair Broadcasting Foreshadows the Death of Local News
The Business Journal
For two weeks now, Blog for Iowa has been running a weekly column by Iowa's Ted Remington called “The Counterpoint.“
Remington started writing “The Counterpoint” in response to the faux
journalism and slanted commentary being forced on Iowans by Sinclair
Broadcasting. In this article from The Business Journal, the true
depth of the destructive nature of what Sinclair Broadcasting is
perpetrating on the American public is revealed.
MINNEAPOLIS – Tune into the evening news
on the Fox TV affiliate in Madison, Wis.,and behold the future of local
news. In the program's concluding segment, “The Point,” Mark Hyman
rants against peace activists (“wack-jobs”), the French (“cheese-eating
surrender monkeys”), progressives (“loony left”) and the so-called
liberal media, usually referred to as the “hate-America crowd” or the
“Axis of Drivel.” Colorful, if creatively anemic, this is TV's version
of talk radio, with the precisely tanned Hyman playing a second-string
Limbaugh.
Fox 47's
right-wing rants may be the future of hometown news, but – believe it
or not – it's not the program's blatant ideological bias that is most
worrisome. Here's the real problem: Hyman isn't the station manager, a
local crank, or even a journalist. He is the Vice President of
Corporate Communications for the station's owner, the Sinclair
Broadcast Group. And this segment of the local news isn't exactly
local. Hyman's commentary is piped in from the home office in
Baltimore, and mixed in with locally-produced news. Sinclair aptly
calls its innovative strategy “NewsCentral” – it is very likely to
spell the demise of local news as we know it.
To read the full report, click here.
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