Roundup: U.S. largest single owner of TV stations faces growing scrutiny

By Julia Pierrepont III

LOS ANGELES, April 4 (Xinhua) -- Sinclair Broadcasting, the largest single local TV station owner in the United States, with a 40 percent market reach across the country, was rocked by a developing controversy triggered by the Smith Family, owners of the 173-station network, who forced local affiliates to read an one-minute-long script, lambasting "irresponsible, one-sided" and "fake" news stories.

The story was initially broken by CNN's Brian Stelter early March, but it went viral when Deadspin's video director, Timothy Burke, and ThinkProgress, a news agency, posted disturbing video compilations last weekend showing the widespread existence of shocking "forced reads" of virtually identical announcements by Sinclair affiliate news anchors all across the nation.

This move, clearly parroting Donald Trump's daily warnings that "false news" made by media outlets "push their own personal bias" is "extremely dangerous to our democracy," are described by many critics as a scandal, while the Maryland based company is considered as an accomplice of the president in his war against the media.

It is ironic at best for a company labeled a blatant news manipulator by one of their own top investigative journalists, who, on the condition of anonymity, disclosed to CNNMoney, "It sickens me the way this company is encroaching upon trusted news brands in rural markets."

North Carolina congressman, David E. Price, labeled the forced reads "pro-Trump propaganda," this Monday and Peter Chernin, president of conservative-leaning Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, decried it as "insidious."

Then the U.S. President defended Sinclair via his tweeter page.

According to an analysis of the company's markets by The Washington Post, its stations are clustered in predominantly conservative areas of the country and the broadcast areas of Sinclair stations voted for Trump over Hillary Clinton by a 19-point margin on average in the presidential election of 2016.

"So funny to watch Fake News Networks, among the most dishonest groups of people I have ever dealt with, criticize Sinclair Broadcasting for being biased. Sinclair is far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC, which is a total joke." Trump tweeted Monday.

"The Fake News Networks, those that knowingly have a sick and biased AGENDA, are worried about the competition and quality of Sinclair Broadcast. The "Fakers" at CNN, NBC, ABC & CBS have done so much dishonest reporting that they should only be allowed to get awards for fiction!" he continued Tuesday.

Whatever who is the real knight guarding truth and democracy, these "forced reads" that dictated by Scott Livingston, Sinclair's corporate Senior Vice President of News, grilled the company at a time when it is already under investigation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s top watchdog, the Office of the Inspector General.

Last April, Ajit Pai, Chairman of FCC, a Trump appointee, aggressively moved to dismantle regulations that would prevent ownership or control of too many U.S. television and radio outlets from falling into the hands of a single company.

Within weeks of the deregulation, Sinclair made a 3.9 billion U.S. dollars bid to buy Tribune Media - a purchase which would give them an additional 42 stations and a stranglehold on 72 percent of U.S. television households, including those in major metropolitan centers such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York.

Craig Aaron, president of Free Press, a consumer advocacy group, ardently opposes the merger, "It's an incredible amount of power in one company' s hands," he warned, adding that Sinclair already produces stories from its headquarters with a marked conservative bias.

Since the deal could not have been made prior to Pai' s dismantling the protective regulations and it was disclosed by the NY Times that Pai had held private meetings with Sinclair executives, the timing and scope of the potential merger raised eyebrows in Washington.

Concerns prompted several Democratic Congressmen, including Congressman Frank Pallone of New Jersey, to call upon the Inspector General' s Office to open an investigation into the propriety of the Sinclair-Tribune merger and FCC Chairman Pai's role in facilitating it.

"For months I have been trying to get to the bottom of the allegations about Chairman Pai's relationship with Sinclair Broadcasting," said Mr. Pallone, the ranking Democrat on the Congressional committee that oversees the FCC in the statement to the NY Times. "I am grateful to the F.C.C.'s Inspector General that he has decided to take up this important investigation."

A Congressional letter dated March 22 and signed by over three dozen lawmakers, called for the rocky Sinclair-Tribune merger to be rejected, arguing that it would reduce the number of disparate voices in the press and diminish coverage of local news.

Former ten-year Commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, Michael J. Copps, and special adviser to the nonpartisan consumer group Common Cause, warned that the planned merger was "another blow to the diversity of journalism that we should have... fewer and fewer organizations controlling more and more of the information on which our democracy rests."

"An investigation could cast a cloud over the whole process," posited Andrew Schwartzman, a senior fellow at the Law Center's Institute for Public Representation of Georgetown. "For the review, knowledge of an investigation could generate caution and even delay completion of the deal."

A recent study by Pew Research indicated that 59 percent of American adults use television to get their news, fueling concerns that if the merger was approved it would give Sinclair a massive platform to advance their conservative-leaning political agenda, such a their "must run" Pro-Trump commentaries by former Trump campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn, and their inflammatory "Terrorism Alerts."

Wrote critic Scott D. Pierce of the The Salt Lake Tribune, "Sinclair is using the trust built by its local station to advance its political agenda."

Sinclair's right-wing political agenda was also examined in detail on HBO's "Last Week Tonight With John Oliver," in which Oliver characterized Sinclair news content as "skewing hard right" and warned that if the merger went through, "unsuspecting audience members will get a heaping dose of Sinclair's content without realizing it."

Employees at Sinclair have reported fearing they' ll be fired if they refuse to read the mandated scripts. But, in a tweet on Monday, a WGN producer at a Tribune station Sinclair that is trying to buy, spoke out, "There is NO WAY any of our on-air anchors and reporters will read their scripted messages on our show. Chicago's Very Own, not owned."

Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said in a statement, "Confidence in an independent Fourth Estate is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy. Ours appears to be headed for the intensive care unit." Enditem