“‘Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” – George Orwell, “1984”
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One of the most troubling developments in journalism, probably in my lifetime, with the exception of the overtly polarized media — Fox News, MSNBC and many others on television and online that don’t even pretend to hide their biases anymore — happened last month when Sinclair Broadcast Group, the conservative conglomerate that owns 173 local stations nationwide, forced its anchors to read a canned statement about the company’s supposed integrity in news reporting (including WPGH in Pittsburgh where I live). The company told the public to hold stations accountable for honest news gathering without the slant and invited viewers to contact them if they saw a problem.
On the surface, this sounds like an admirable thing to do. Any news source should be open to critiques and willing to air or publish corrections when they get details wrong. But these weren’t statements from local producers tailored to the communities in which they serve. These were identical talking points handed down from the corporate office, and taken together, are chilling reminders that without free speech and a free press, democracy cannot flourish. In fact, it withers.
[pullquote]
Yeah, nothing says we value independent media like dozens of reporters forced to repeat the same message over and over again like members of a brainwashed cult. — John Oliver, “Last Week Tonight”[/pullquote]
CNN’s Brian Stelter broke the story, but Deadspin spliced together a video of dozens of anchors all saying the same things in lockstep. The full transcript is here.
Glossing over the fact that these statements were delivered with no lead-ins or context whatsoever, which is bizarre by itself, the content sounded like fodder from Fox News and almost precisely echoes President Donald Trump’s breathless cries about supposed “fake news” coming out of The New York Times, CNN, NBC or any other outlets publishing information that doesn’t paint him or his administration in a positive light.
Here is an excerpt:
… We’re concerned about the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country. The sharing of biased and false news has become all too common on social media.
More alarming, some media outlets publish these same fake stories … stories that just aren’t true, without checking facts first.
Unfortunately, some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control ‘exactly what people think’…This is extremely dangerous to (our) democracy.
The first point should be obvious, but it has to be made: the lion’s share of reporting done at the local level, and especially the halfhearted, show-up-and-leave-in-a-trail-of-dust variety at local TV stations across the country, has little if anything to do with left- or right-wing dynamics. Some local stations add national news to their coverage just to have something to talk about for the full hour, but it’s not their coverage. They are just piggybacking off some other affiliate. And many local elections, like seats on the school board or city council, aren’t partisan in the first place.
Even for those local elections that are partisan, national Democratic and Republican platforms have little to do with funding school programs, fixing roads or maintenance of community facilities. The demarcation line usually revolves around whether to raise enough tax revenues to pay for continued county or city services or to just let things fall to shit, but aside from that, political affiliation isn’t as much of a variable on the local level as people may think.
The second thing to say is that the script just presents a paper thin, blanket argument, again parroted from Trump’s own mouth, about “fake news” without any corroborating information or specifics, taking great liberties with the word “some” to say the zero-sum of nothing:
Some members of the media [like who?] use their platforms to push their own personal bias [like what?] and agenda [like what?] to control ‘exactly what people think’ … This is extremely dangerous to a democracy.
The irony is that Sinclair is doing exactly the same thing, and it is reminiscent of state-run media in places like Russia and North Korea. As CNN reports, journalists like myself and many others across the nation are “chafing” at this encroachment on the free press. Some of Sinclair’s own employees, of course, are afraid to speak on the record about it for fear of losing their jobs. But many others who aren’t associated with the company have spoken out.
Erik Wemple with The Washington Post provided perhaps the most pointed assessment of the statement:
So: An editorial with no supporting evidence, no data, no argumentative beef. One hundred percent innuendo. No wonder Sinclair employees are freaking out about the thing.
I watched a little CNN yesterday, and commentators were talking about the plight of the individual anchors at these TV stations, who were made to read the statement and would likely face termination if they didn’t, noting that in more cases than not, they couldn’t just walk out of their jobs because they have families to support and mortgages to pay, etc. But journalism is a principled profession. Maybe the anchors can’t afford to walk out immediately, but if they sense that what they were forced to do was wrong, they can, and should, look for work at a more respectable company that actually values journalistic integrity. Consequently, I once worked for a paper owned by a family with friends on the local county council, and every so often, the managing editor and I would receive talking points via email and be expected to compose an editorial based on whatever opinion the owners felt the need to peddle, which was a severe conflict of interest. In addition to the tedious nature of the job itself — I spent most of my time copy editing and laying out pages — I couldn’t in good conscience work in an environment like that, so when the opportunity arose, I got out.
The larger issue is the continued damage Sinclair’s approach does to journalism and the principles of a free society. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are two of the highest ideals on which our nation was founded, and editors and producers must be allowed to make news decisions independently of government or corporate interests. Outlets like Fox News, MSNBC and others have already embraced a kind of partisan news vacuum that recalls the 19th century era of journalism in which most papers were either pro-slavery or staunchly against the “peculiar institution.” Supporting that kind of divide in the year 2018 not only represents an embarrassing disregard for journalistic integrity on the part of Sinclair, but, to borrow the company’s own phrase, it is an extremely dangerous threat to our democracy.
Sources:
- https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/02/598794433/video-reveals-power-of-sinclair-as-local-news-anchors-recite-script-in-unison
- https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-americas-largest-local-tv-owner-turned-its-news-anc-1824233490
- http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/01/media/sinclair-anchor-promos/index.html
- http://www.post-gazette.com/news/nation/2018/04/02/Sinclair-s-sound-alike-anchors-draw-criticism-for-their-fake-news-promos/stories/201804030064
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/04/02/the-real-problem-with-sinclairs-fake-news-script/?utm_term=.be5130a9357b
[Cover image credit: “Orwell” by DeviantArt user TavenerScholar.