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FCC declines to punish Sinclair for its ‘must-run’ segments and scripts
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- move-on-by 8y agoI can see why the FCC might be hesitant to get involved with these segments and scripts. However, the Sinclair merger should unequivocally be rejected. This business pattern only becomes an issue once you get monopolies and oligopolies. We need competition and variety in our news sources. Oligopolies are extremely dangerous to our democracy.
- godzillabrennus 8y agoCoupled with Citizens United verdict I agree. Also makes it easier for foreign money to influence our elections. Behind the scenes a foreign government can invest in American companies that buy advertising to change the outcome of an election.
- beckler 8y agoImagine if a foreign company bought Sinclair.
- floatrock 8y agoIt would be blocked. Just last month for example the administration blocked Singapore-based Broadcom from a takeover bid of Qualcomm on national security grounds. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/technology/trump-broadcom-qualcomm-merger.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/technology/trump-broadcom... Not a fan of any of these folks, but if Trump is willing to do a USPS audit pony show just because he's in a kerfuffle with Amazon's WaPo, an international takeover of a large media conglomerate is highly unlikely.
- mulmen 8y agoAmazon does not own WaPo. This distinction is important.
- mieseratte 8y agoHow about this, the guy who owns the Washington Post is the founder and a major stakeholder of Amazon.
- floatrock 8y agoOf course not. The point is billionaires get into pissing contests by attacking whatever flank or asset is the easiest target.
- InitialLastName 8y agoI don't think you can generalize this to "billionaires". More like "one specific 'billionaire'".
- solarkraft 8y agoWhile blocking large foreign buyouts is probably a win for the US I still wouldn't trust the admin to do so reliably. Just throw a few hundred bucks their way.
- r00fus 8y agoWhat makes you think they're not already somehow manipulated by foreign interests? How would you know?
- chiefalchemist 8y agoForeign interests? Domestic interests? I struggle to see the difference when it's all said and done. In either case the spirit of the republic is spat on. In either case, We The People get some perverted version of a gov said to be: of the people, by the people, for the people. Death is still death whether by foreign cancer of domestic cancer. If you trust (e.g.) Wall Street more than you trust (e.g.) The Russians then I have a bridge you might be interested in. Given their presumed loyalty - but ultimately the lack there of - the former's violations are relatively worse. Let's not be naive.
- r00fus 8y agoI stand corrected. Foreign or domestic, their interests don't align with the US public at large.
- nasredin 8y agoIIRC China recently bought a major Hollywood studio. Also notice the increase in token Chinese actors in recent blockbusters. Transformers even had some CCP pandering in the script. The self-censorship this brings is a real problem.
- kolpa 8y agoThat's more for making the movies popular in China than for manipulating American attitudes.
- dabbledash 8y agoIt would be very hard to view them as a monopoly in any case if you consider all the other media sources they compete with. I can’t think of the last time I saw broadcast local news.
- rhino369 8y agoAny justification for censoring Sinclair would apply 100 fold to Google or Facebook. Its just not constitutional to ban Sinclair for running pro GOP content.
- kolpa 8y agoSinclair has a government-granted monopoly on the frequencies on which they broadcast. Google and Facebook offer service accessible over the (almost entirely) capacity-unconstrained Internet medium.
- rhino369 8y agoAnd a movie theatre has a government granted monopoly on a piece of land on which they show movies. Doesn't mean you can't just build another one next door. Facebook has an actual monolopy on an entire market.
- lovich 8y agoI agree that Facebook is a bigger issue, but you can't just build on more frequency. There's only a small, already claimed amount, that is suitable and allowed for broadcasting tv
- gregdunn 8y agoTV broadcast frequencies are a far scarcer resource than land.
- will4274 8y agoAnd yet, there are more TV stations than movie theatres in many towns.
- beckler 8y agoThe FCC does have the authority to revoke licenses based on content, but it's rare for them to do so. However, this entire situation is ultimately a consequence of revoking the FCC fairness doctrine. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine) For example, a news station did have their license revoked by taking a strong stance against civil rights, and violated the fairness doctrine. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WLBT#Opposition_to_civil_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WLBT#Opposition_to_civil_right...)
- rhino369 8y agoThe fairness doctrine was hardly ever envoked. Attempting to apply it to a situation like this would not be constitutional. The fairness doctrine was found constitutional when it required a rebuttal to a direct personal attack during an era when there were only 3 stations. But this situation is different. It was never applied to a sitation where a network required "must run" content. At best, the fairness doctrine would require at least some dissenting opinion on the issue. The Supreme Court, in upholding the fairness doctrine, said it should never be used to limit speech. That's what critics want to do here, punish Sinclair for running content. Arguably, the fairness doctrine is no longer constitutional at all. The court's reasoning relied on there being limited channels. That is no longer true. Even on broadcast, there are 20 channels available. If democrats don't like Sinclair, they can go start their own network. When you consider all the other sorts of media available, its just not credible to argue that there is a legitmate concern that people cannot be both sides of an issue.
- philwelch 8y agoThe fairness doctrine may not have been invoked or enforced, but stations still did things, to remain in compliance, that they stopped doing afterwards. In particular, right-wing talk radio exploded almost immediately after the repeal of the fairness doctrine.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- hexenhammer 8y agoI’m not sure why there is all of th controversy. This is not new.
- decacorn 8y agoit is new when the POTUS has ties to the new owners of Sinclair. This isn't Russia, and real Americans will keep it that way, thanks.
- Covzire 8y agoRight wing media has pointed out the same 'creepy talking point synchronicity' happening in the larger mainstream media for many years. Just like with Cambridge Analytica, certain behavior is only raised by the media as a scandal when amateurs try to the same thing the big boys have been doing for years/decades.
- mabbo 8y agoReally? Which news outlets had dozens of news anchors read, word for word, the same script that was given to them by their owners and played as if it was a local independent news story? It's unprecedented. It's not about which politics the story supports, it's about the media and public being manipulated. Ajit Pai's response shows he either doesn't understand that or wants everyone else to think it's about something else.
- Covzire 8y agoRemember Journolist[0]? The views of the major news stations and papers have been heavily aligned in one direction for several decades now. Journolist was hard evidence that they colluded in delivering talking points not just among one brand but multiple brands at the same time. Like I said, Sinclair are amatuers to what has, and we have to assume is, going on with most other outlets. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList
- s73v3r_ 8y agoYou're confusing the issue. The issue here isn't a bunch of stations being aligned; the issue is the parent company mandating a word-for-word reading of a script that furthers the parent company's interest.
- ceejayoz 8y ago> Remember Journolist? Journolist had 400 journalists on it. Sinclair owns 233 entire stations.
- delbel 8y ago
- chiefalchemist 8y agoCall me crazy but it's time for a legal definition of news (vs editorial) and then have that definition forced. If false advertising is a faux pas then news that's not attempting to be objective and forthright should be labeled. Most of the so called news / journalism isn't news / journalism any more than Aspartame is sugar. If you can't call Aspartame sugar then consuming content should be forced to be as transparent.
- spydum 8y agoI can't help but observe that substantial movement of pressure and criticism in the US around biased journalism, and fake news is shifting the narrative (or preparing it) for state-controlled media. We thought it was bad before, and social media and independent journalism was supposed to be the underdog here to help usurp those big-corp biases.. but it turned out to be the exact opposite. So whats left? big government to step in and defend us helpless civilians, and make sure we only recieve official state truth. I hope I am wrong.
- openasocket 8y agoUniversities in the US (and most other countries) need accreditation to be considered universities and to qualify to education grants and the like. That doesn't mean that all universities are state-run, only providing a government-approved curriculum. There's lots of controls you can put in place to limit government control. In the case of university accreditation, the government generally gives the responsibility to a handful of NGOs, along with regional bodies.
- kolpa 8y agoWhat is your proposed definition and how would you apply the test in practice?
- rc_bhg 8y ago"Must not intentionally report false information as truth." Thus, lawsuites would be allowed if your org was found to be intentionally lying. But unless someone can prove you did it intentionally, they have no case. Obviously you can lie all you want if you take the word "News" out of your name.
- jsgo 8y agoTorn here. On the one hand, I hate the "must run" items, yet on the other hand, I see this as being a slippery slope if they were to punish as that'd be dictating to a company what is allowed on their stations. Having said that, two things: 1) I'm glad it was exposed and wish it were highlighted more than it was. This gives viewers the ability to discern how valuable they find the content to know that scripts were dictated to their newspeople. 2) I'm hoping, though doubtful, that this prevents Sinclair from buying up other small market stations as they've shown their hand as to what they'd do with a monopoly.
- mrguyorama 8y agoThe problem here that I see is one of "false advertising" If you present yourself as "News", that has certain connotations. Publishing this forced run content without disclaiming that it is not independently sourced journalism IMO violates those connotations
- pnw_hazor 8y agoAll news is subject to editors/publishers making decisions about what is included, excluded, omitted, broadcast-ed, etc., for political or commercial reasons. It has always been this way.
- maxxxxx 8y agoI am opposed to punishing Sinclair. In my view it comes down to that we should discourage the creation of large companies in general. They just get too much power no matter what industry.
- downandout 8y agoI don’t get what the issue is here. I have seen this message on my local television stations. What is missing from the YouTube video is an invitation at the end of that message for viewers to contact the station with any concerns about bias in its own reporting. In fact that is the entire point of the script, and it has been cutoff of the YouTube video, presumably because it appears to be more controversial that way. Oh, the irony! So a large media company recognized the problem of bias in the media, which could become a business problem if it affects confidence in their news reporting, and invited people to contact them if they noticed this problem creeping into the individual news stations’ reports. Where is the controversy here?
- IAmEveryone 8y agoDo you really believe Sinclair doesn't have the manpower to watch their own programming to check for any 'biases'? And if you believe they are somehow incapable of noticing biases: how would they adjudicate any complaints they get? That request for comments is either a McGuffin needed to have a reason for the preceding rant slamming all other media outlets. Or it's a ploy to get local stations in line with Sinclair's corporate agenda, by asking their viewers to rat them out to headquarters.
- downandout 8y agoUmm...wut? Would you not agree that bias is in the media is a major issue today, and that it may cause a significant percentage of viewers to abandon a given station or website if they see too much of it? Before the 2016 election, I regularly watched CNN and visited its website. Now it’s such a den of partiality and clickbait headlines that I have relegated it to HuffPo status and cannot trust anything I read there, so I simply don’t go there. I’d imagine there are others that feel this way too. So if I’m a media company and I see complaints about my stations or a decline in news viewership, I’m going to take steps to stop it from happening. Companies often don’t know that they have problems until customers express their opinions about them, and so Sinclair is trying to keep an open dialogue with their viewers. Since when is asking customers how they feel about your service a bad thing?
- jcwayne 8y agoThis assault on the journalistic integrity of local news must stop! Before you know it they'll have so many must-runs that I'll never find out if my toaster really is going to kill me.
- nugi 8y agoI have on good authority that everyone who owns or uses a toaster, will in fact die.
- Shivetya 8y agoI support the decision, Pai even did something similar when Trump went on one his tirades about taking licenses from the large news companies. He even quoted the Democratic Senator Markey is this reply. Sinclair can easily lose its trust with its viewers let alone its own talent and that can effect change. There is already scripted news out there that presents facts in a similar manner. It all comes down to, who is upset by it? if Washington politicians are the ones upset then I am not concerned. They already exert such control over the media by simply coercing news to play nice or lose access that we should always be worried when they want to stifle any speech.
- jadedhacker 8y agoVery weird that a consolidated media company would force its viewpoint to be propagated. This is very unlike the rest of the media and a genuinely new phenomenon. /s (2012) http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-... If you think that these companies aren't pushing a viewpoint you got another thing coming. Hint: It's pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist, anti-worker, and anti-political dissenters.
- DINKDINK 8y ago"This is extremely dangerous to our democracy."[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEDkMTO0mSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEDkMTO0mSI
- arca_vorago 8y agoFCC doesnt seem like it's protecting consumers. I think if I were POTUS I'd be using this section of its mandate. "Communications during emergencies and crisis must be available for public safety, health, defense, and emergency personnel, as well as all consumers in need. The Nation's critical communications infrastructure must be reliable, interoperable, redundant, and rapidly restorable." The honest thing is that the FCC has already shown itself to be a problem by allowing the media mergers and aquisitions in the first place, and the people who made those decisions should be held to account as far as the statue of limitations allows, but also should the institution (preferably by congress). I'm starting to get really tired of "independent" government agencies being at the heart of root problems.
- KZeillmann 8y agoWere you under the impression that an Ajit Pai-led FCC would be intent on protecting consumers?
- craftyguy 8y agoI don't think anyone was under that impression. But there are literally no solutions to the Ajut problem that any of us can contribute to.
- sjg007 8y agoI think Trump is probably supportive of Sinclair. The promote a pro Trump message and have a conservative bias.
- actsasbuffoon 8y agoFrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Epshteyn Boris Alexandrovich Epshteyn (Russian: Бори́с Алекса́ндрович Эпштейн; born August 14, 1982) is a Russian-born American Republican political strategist, investment banker, and attorney. He is currently the Chief Political Analyst at Sinclair Broadcast Group. He was a senior advisor to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign for President of the United States, and previously worked on the McCain-Palin campaign. Following Trump's election, he was named director of communications for the Presidential Inaugural Committee, and then assistant communications director for surrogate operations in the administration, until he resigned in March 2017. TL;DR: The guy in charge of political programming for Sinclair worked for Trump, both on the campaign and in the white house.
- pnw_hazor 8y agoAlternative headline: FCC declines to violate the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
- specialist 8y agoBroadcast licenses are granted on the basis of serving the public interest. With great power comes great responsibility.
- Bizarro 8y agoIt's disturbing the number of people here calling for and defending the need for a Ministry of Truth.