Sinclair Broadcast: The Puppetmasters (AlterNet)

[mike_c]

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21278/

Sinclair Broadcast: The Puppetmasters

By Paul Schmelzer, AlterNet. Posted February 17, 2005.

What's driving the Sinclair news cycle? Some employees say the company is pulling strings based on its – and its executives' – financial and political interests.

On the surface, nothing in the April 17, 2001 evening news broadcast on Baltimore’s WBFF-TV was atypical. A reporter from the Fox affiliate covered efforts by environmental groups to clean up the North Branch of the Potomac River in western Maryland. It featured visuals of factory crud in the river, interviews with canoeing enthusiasts, and a shot of the Westvaco Paper Mill, the apparent cause of the river's contamination.

<snip>

One such staffer says that Sinclair Vice President J. Duncan Smith asked Craig Demchak to take on the story. "Duncan comes in and says: 'Craig, we need this story, it's affecting my property. We've got to slam these people,’" recalls that person. "He was told 'This is destroying my property, we've got to stop it.' If it had been anybody else's property, would they be sending the helicopter there to see it? No way in hell."

<snip>

Evil or not, Sinclair epitomizes the kind of me-first, ideology-driven media peddled by the likes of Armstrong Williams, Jeff Gannon, and Bill O'Reilly, where personal, political, and economic motives openly trump principle and the public good. While Leiberman attributes Sinclair's agenda-driven news to, among other factors, a belief by David Smith and others that "the media has been so liberal that they're doing the right thing by trying to balance the tables," another former producer offers a more encompassing view. "David Smith has very strong political beliefs, and he felt that if he could use his media influences — I mean, he owns 60-something stations — why not use it? And at the same time he'd be making money, because commercial time sells better with news than it does with something like King of the Hill. 'Hey, I can make money, save money, and get out my political views.'"

[lovuian]

1. Using the News Media for personal gain should be ilegal

and the news media is being used to promote the agenda thats why I refuse to watch it!!!

[donheld]

2. Not surprising - but totally discusting.

This is not what the media is for. Well at least until now.

[NashVegas]

3. Self Interest Has Always Driven The News Media

Anyone who's ever worked in the business, who tells you differently, is lying through their teeth. How the hell do you think the tax cuts for the rich have been rammed down our throats?

What's important is the ability to separate self-indulgence from public interest and be responsible about it.

If no one else had any interest in a story that was near and dear to the heart of a media company's owner or broadcasters/producers/writers, no one would listen to it, no one would read it.

One such staffer says that Sinclair Vice President J. Duncan Smith asked Craig Demchak to take on the story. "Duncan comes in and says: 'Craig, we need this story, it's affecting my property. We've got to slam these people,’" recalls that person. "He was told 'This is destroying my property, we've got to stop it.' If it had been anybody else's property, would they be sending the helicopter there to see it? No way in hell."

Demchak could have refused. He may well have lost his job for it, but it would have given Smith something to think about the next time he thought about leaning on someone.

Demchak could have bargained, could have put it in the favor bank to get some sway on a future project he wanted to do.

[Moochy]

4. McCain didnt like Sinclair in 2004

McCain showing his spine and quickly hiding it to support Bush in 2004.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/04/30/abc.nightline/index.html

CNN) -- The decision of Sinclair Broadcast Group, which ordered its seven ABC stations not to broadcast Friday's "Nightline," has received criticism from U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona.

Friday's edition will broadcast the names and photographs of the more than 500 U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war.

"Your decision to deny your viewers an opportunity to be reminded of war's terrible costs, in all their heartbreaking detail, is a gross disservice to the public, and to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces," McCain, a Vietnam veteran, wrote in a letter to David Smith, president and CEO of Sinclair Broadcast Group. "It is, in short, sir, unpatriotic. I hope it meets with the public opprobrium it most certainly deserves."