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I'm on the left but I always saw the argument of >how many local news outlets are owned by the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group. ...to itself be dishones
by rscoots 5y ago
I'm on the left but I always saw the argument of
>how many local news outlets are owned by the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group.
...to itself be dishonest 'journalistic' spin, in this case perpetuated by John Oliver among others.
"How many" local news outlets is irrelevant when you consider a vast majority of Sinclair's outlets are for tiny rural channels, meanwhile large urban and coastal channels will undoubtedly skew more liberal but be fewer in #.
When else has the metric of "how many channels" ever been used to determine reach and engagement?
Not sure of the numbers, just wanted to point this out.
- patentatt 5y agoDecent point, but I think the relevance is that there are large swaths of the US that are blanketed by this conservative news bubble, and that our Senate is apportioned (and to a lesser extent the House) to land, not people. So the fact that lots of land is covered by this bubble is relevant at least to the functioning of the Senate.
- rscoots 5y agoBut for the Senate the size discrepancy is at the state level not within state races. A senator from Connecticut has less constituents than Texas but still has to win a pure majority in Connecticut. In any case I think you'll agree this is now a much narrower point about Sinclair than ppl like Oliver intended to make. (Got my account rate limited cuz too many fellow liberals downvoted me w/o comment. Seems like HN might not be a good place for reasonable discussion on controversial topics.)
- dfxm12 5y agoCouple targeted messaging with gerrymandering and Sinclair doesn't need full coverage to ensure conservatives can control or make gains in state governments/the house.
- rscoots 5y agoThen why talk about the number of channels they have when this is what you actually mean? Like I said, it just strikes me as dishonest in that specific way.
- dfxm12 5y agoThe post was about SBG's influence among those on the right (for one example, when it comes to telling its viewers to distrust the media), not about a specific number of channels.