8 ms·

I'm not clear why this is a problem. A corporation asked its broadcasters to make a statement on fake news. This statement sounds similar to others made by othe

I'm not clear why this is a problem. A corporation asked its broadcasters to make a statement on fake news. This statement sounds similar to others made by other corporate owned networks. Viewers are invited to comment on the website.

alistairSH 9y ago
The problem is the corporation. Sinclair has it's own political agenda. Forcing anchors across the US to recite something is bad enough, but when that something is of questionable truth, and orchestrated to minimuze Sinclair's own propensity to push its right-ist agenda, it's downright scary.
- robotrout 9y ago
  Local stations are the least of our problems. 232 executives control news to 277 million Americans (from 2012). This was what I hoped the article was about. http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-...
  - electricEmu 9y ago
    Ignoring local stations makes the situation worse.
- ThbTs4wbXC9Qjv 9y ago
  I'm FAR more concerned about national stations like CNN than local Sinclair stations. Just anti-american agenda based news non-stop. Some of us happen to like the country we live in.
  - andybak 9y ago
    You can like your country and still be critical of behaviour done in it's name. In fact - I would say it's a duty. If you care about something, you care about it's well being and reputation. Would you call reporting on, say, The Mai Lai Massacre or the Kent State shootings "anti-american"? How about Monica Lewinsky or Watergate?
  - wyldfire 9y ago
    Can you clarify what you mean by "anti-american agenda"? Questioning authority is absolutely the most appropriate task for the free press. IMO at least this part is not "anti-american". Let's further the discussion -- take a look at http://lite.cnn.io/en http://lite.cnn.io/en -- there's about 40-50 stories there. Please pick the top five or ten and help illustrate which among those demonstrate the bias you refer to. Or if the problem is less widespread, please indicate which among the 40-50 there illustrate the bias.
- 0x445442 9y ago
  Yeah, just about as scary as GE, Disney, Time Warner et al. pushing their left wing agendas via CNN, MSNBC/NBC and ABC. See, everyone can play this game in the Postmodernist world.
  - mozumder 9y ago
    OK but now you have to explain why pushing a "left wing agenda" is supposed to be scary. Was it voting rights? Is voting rights scary? Or perhaps universal health care? Is that scary? Or a public education? Wooow that's REALLY scary! Come on.. scare us! We liberals love a good scary story!
    - Consultant32452 9y ago
      It's easy if you just blindly accept the axioms of one of the groups. You accept the axioms of left wingers, so it doesn't seem scary to you. I'm not a right winger but they could just as easily say: murdering millions of unborn children, robbing us of our right to defend ourselves, denying the right to freedom of association, infringing on our freedom of speech, infringing on our freedom of religion, etc. Those are all pretty scary.
      - mozumder 9y ago
        OK now you have to prove that Disney/CNN/etc. is pushing a pro-abortion agenda. Or that they're pushing government to limit your rights to free speech or religion. Where did Disney & CNN say government should limit your rights to free speech & religion?
        Consultant32452 9y ago
        I am not a conservative so I'm voicing what I understand to be someone else's opinion. The major media companies including CNN heavily toed the government line that religious groups do not have the right to avoid paying for child murder on religious grounds. Government funded public universities regularly hassle, cancel, and provide insufficient security for conservative speakers. This is government funded censorship and the media has carefully avoided putting it in those terms because they support the position of censoring conservatives.
rambojazz 9y ago
- people trust local media - a single corporation owns a fuckton of those local stations - the same corporation writes a script to broadcast on every station - media hosts or journalists can't say "no". Do the job or lose your job. They're not free to report news without bias - you don't know everything about everything, so you're inclined to trust the news because they're supposed to be neutral and report facts - ultimately you internalize a biased opinion that was poured down onto you by the will of a handful of shareholders Why can't you see the problem?
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  Not the person you're replying to, but I also have a hard time seeing the problem. Or rather, I can see the problem, but this is how I would've expected news to have been done for decades. I grew up when there was only 4 TV channels and no internet. I would have assumed CBS (or its parent) would have controlled all the CBS affiliates in this way in the 80s. NBC would do the same, etc.
  - pwg 9y ago
    Actually, no, back in that day long ago, in a world far away, the local broadcaster wasn't 'owned' by the big three. The local broadcaster was independent, and they got their feed for first run programming, and the "world news" from their affiliation (more akin to the local purchasing the rights to broadcast) with one of the big three majors. There used to be actual regulations on the books that prevented this type of consolidation from happening. Then, sometime circa. the 1980's, those laws were tossed out, leading to today where one single corporate parent controls nearly 200 local broadcasters in a very direct way.
  - Bud 9y ago
    I guess you're completely ignorant of the Fairness Doctrine, then.
    - disgruntledphd2 9y ago
      A link, in case anyone is lazy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine
steamer25 9y ago
It's ironic (cue pedants) because they're denouncing one-sided presentations that advance a particular agenda while using a facade of ostensibly independent-minded locals that are actually mouthpieces for their remote overlords. It betrays that their indignation isn't so much over dangers to democracy as it is their loosening grip on the ability to frame the discussion of any given day. https://youtu.be/TRBppdC1h_Y https://youtu.be/TRBppdC1h_Y https://youtu.be/0ljI-isM0bg https://youtu.be/0ljI-isM0bg
- pdx 9y ago
  Except they're not "mouth pieces". Local journalists are much more independent than national ones. This instance by Sinclair of attempting to combat the national news broadcasters was a David vs Goliath attempt, and they are coming out of it much worse than David did.
  - tangent128 9y ago
    "Independence" is incompatible with "being forced by corporate to grant your credibilty to their talking points". You can't say Sinclair is "combating the national news broadcasters"; they themselves are a national news broadcaster. They just happen to like branding themselves with local faces.
  - dguaraglia 9y ago
    Please explain how "independent" they are, in the context of them being forced to repeat a script from Sinclair news. I'm not even sure how you can miss the contradiction.
    - dguaraglia 9y ago
      Haha, nothing gets you downvoted faster in Hacker News than expressing an anti-current-administration opinion. This place is being closely brigaded.
digitaltrees 9y ago
Systematically destroying the trust in all other sources of truth so that you are the only source of truth is a dangerous tactic that is used to consolidate power in the minds of a population. This argument needs to be called out any time its used and by anyone that uses it. I am on the left, if any democrat used this argument to gain power I would call them out.

alistairSH 9y ago

The problem is the corporation. Sinclair has it's own political agenda. Forcing anchors across the US to recite something is bad enough, but when that something is of questionable truth, and orchestrated to minimuze Sinclair's own propensity to push its right-ist agenda, it's downright scary.

robotrout 9y ago
Local stations are the least of our problems. 232 executives control news to 277 million Americans (from 2012). This was what I hoped the article was about. http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-...
- electricEmu 9y ago
  Ignoring local stations makes the situation worse.
ThbTs4wbXC9Qjv 9y ago
I'm FAR more concerned about national stations like CNN than local Sinclair stations. Just anti-american agenda based news non-stop. Some of us happen to like the country we live in.
- andybak 9y ago
  You can like your country and still be critical of behaviour done in it's name. In fact - I would say it's a duty. If you care about something, you care about it's well being and reputation. Would you call reporting on, say, The Mai Lai Massacre or the Kent State shootings "anti-american"? How about Monica Lewinsky or Watergate?
- wyldfire 9y ago
  Can you clarify what you mean by "anti-american agenda"? Questioning authority is absolutely the most appropriate task for the free press. IMO at least this part is not "anti-american". Let's further the discussion -- take a look at http://lite.cnn.io/en http://lite.cnn.io/en -- there's about 40-50 stories there. Please pick the top five or ten and help illustrate which among those demonstrate the bias you refer to. Or if the problem is less widespread, please indicate which among the 40-50 there illustrate the bias.
0x445442 9y ago
Yeah, just about as scary as GE, Disney, Time Warner et al. pushing their left wing agendas via CNN, MSNBC/NBC and ABC. See, everyone can play this game in the Postmodernist world.
- mozumder 9y ago
  OK but now you have to explain why pushing a "left wing agenda" is supposed to be scary. Was it voting rights? Is voting rights scary? Or perhaps universal health care? Is that scary? Or a public education? Wooow that's REALLY scary! Come on.. scare us! We liberals love a good scary story!
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    It's easy if you just blindly accept the axioms of one of the groups. You accept the axioms of left wingers, so it doesn't seem scary to you. I'm not a right winger but they could just as easily say: murdering millions of unborn children, robbing us of our right to defend ourselves, denying the right to freedom of association, infringing on our freedom of speech, infringing on our freedom of religion, etc. Those are all pretty scary.
    - mozumder 9y ago
      OK now you have to prove that Disney/CNN/etc. is pushing a pro-abortion agenda. Or that they're pushing government to limit your rights to free speech or religion. Where did Disney & CNN say government should limit your rights to free speech & religion?
      - Consultant32452 9y ago
        I am not a conservative so I'm voicing what I understand to be someone else's opinion. The major media companies including CNN heavily toed the government line that religious groups do not have the right to avoid paying for child murder on religious grounds. Government funded public universities regularly hassle, cancel, and provide insufficient security for conservative speakers. This is government funded censorship and the media has carefully avoided putting it in those terms because they support the position of censoring conservatives.

rambojazz 9y ago

- people trust local media - a single corporation owns a fuckton of those local stations - the same corporation writes a script to broadcast on every station - media hosts or journalists can't say "no". Do the job or lose your job. They're not free to report news without bias - you don't know everything about everything, so you're inclined to trust the news because they're supposed to be neutral and report facts - ultimately you internalize a biased opinion that was poured down onto you by the will of a handful of shareholders Why can't you see the problem?

Consultant32452 9y ago
Not the person you're replying to, but I also have a hard time seeing the problem. Or rather, I can see the problem, but this is how I would've expected news to have been done for decades. I grew up when there was only 4 TV channels and no internet. I would have assumed CBS (or its parent) would have controlled all the CBS affiliates in this way in the 80s. NBC would do the same, etc.
- pwg 9y ago
  Actually, no, back in that day long ago, in a world far away, the local broadcaster wasn't 'owned' by the big three. The local broadcaster was independent, and they got their feed for first run programming, and the "world news" from their affiliation (more akin to the local purchasing the rights to broadcast) with one of the big three majors. There used to be actual regulations on the books that prevented this type of consolidation from happening. Then, sometime circa. the 1980's, those laws were tossed out, leading to today where one single corporate parent controls nearly 200 local broadcasters in a very direct way.
- Bud 9y ago
  I guess you're completely ignorant of the Fairness Doctrine, then.
  - disgruntledphd2 9y ago
    A link, in case anyone is lazy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine

steamer25 9y ago

It's ironic (cue pedants) because they're denouncing one-sided presentations that advance a particular agenda while using a facade of ostensibly independent-minded locals that are actually mouthpieces for their remote overlords. It betrays that their indignation isn't so much over dangers to democracy as it is their loosening grip on the ability to frame the discussion of any given day. https://youtu.be/TRBppdC1h_Y https://youtu.be/TRBppdC1h_Y https://youtu.be/0ljI-isM0bg https://youtu.be/0ljI-isM0bg

pdx 9y ago
Except they're not "mouth pieces". Local journalists are much more independent than national ones. This instance by Sinclair of attempting to combat the national news broadcasters was a David vs Goliath attempt, and they are coming out of it much worse than David did.
- tangent128 9y ago
  "Independence" is incompatible with "being forced by corporate to grant your credibilty to their talking points". You can't say Sinclair is "combating the national news broadcasters"; they themselves are a national news broadcaster. They just happen to like branding themselves with local faces.
- dguaraglia 9y ago
  Please explain how "independent" they are, in the context of them being forced to repeat a script from Sinclair news. I'm not even sure how you can miss the contradiction.
  - dguaraglia 9y ago
    Haha, nothing gets you downvoted faster in Hacker News than expressing an anti-current-administration opinion. This place is being closely brigaded.

digitaltrees 9y ago

Systematically destroying the trust in all other sources of truth so that you are the only source of truth is a dangerous tactic that is used to consolidate power in the minds of a population. This argument needs to be called out any time its used and by anyone that uses it. I am on the left, if any democrat used this argument to gain power I would call them out.