The Conservative, Republican Dominated Media

[thoughtone]

source: Mother Jones

Sinclair Could Be a Big Winner From the FCC’s Latest Deregulation Move
Goodbye, local studio rule. Hello, more consolidation?

For almost 80 years, the Federal Communications Commission required that TV and radio stations have a studio in or near the community they served. It was only logical that a TV station covering a particular city or region have a physical presence there—to better cover the news, to give a connection to the community, and to offer viewers an easy way to interact with the station.

But on Tuesday, the FCC’s Republican majority voted to eliminate the main studio rule. It was the latest step by the commission under President Donald Trump to deregulate the broadcast industry, and it could further pave the way for the growth of a small number of powerfulmedia companies, including Sinclair Broadcast Group, the pro-Trump TV behemoth on a mission to dominate the local news business across the country.

The FCC’s two Democrats voted against the decision. “By eliminating the main studio rule in its entirety for all broadcast stations—regardless of size or location—the FCC signals that it no longer believes those awarded a license to use the public airwaves should have a local presence in their community,” Commission Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat, said after the vote.

Critics on the left and right condemned the FCC’s decision. “By eliminating this rule, the Commission has blasted open a path for conglomerates like Sinclair to move even more resources—including broadcast facilities and staff—away from underserved communities,” Dana Floberg, a policy analyst at the media advocacy group Free Press, said in a statement.

Christopher Ruddy, the CEO of the conservative Newsmax Media company and a friend of Trump, wrote in a recent Washington Post op-ed: “If this requirement is dropped, local news production could be moved to places such as New York and Washington as the big networks buy up local stations.”

The broadcast industry was a driving force behind the FCC’s decision. The National Association of Broadcasters, the industry’s top lobbying group, argued that the rule was outdated because viewers and listeners can now contact their local TV and radio stations by email and on social media, and so it’s no longer necessary to maintain a physical presence in the community. The NAB also said that throwing out the main studio rule would lead to “cost savings and other efficiencies that will allow stations to better serve their audiences.” Broadcast companies such as Sinclair say they need all the savings they can find as they compete with Google, Amazon, and other major tech corporations entering the media business.

The FCC’s three Republicans agreed with the industry’s stance. Ajit Pai, the commission’s Republican chairman, went even further by predicting a future in which “technology allows broadcast stations to produce local news even without a nearby studio.”

The elimination of the rule will undoubtedly help companies such as Sinclair as they seek to consolidate the broadcast business down to a handful of mega-companies. Right now, Sinclair is seeking FCC approval of a $3.9 billion merger with Tribune Media. That deal would see Sinclair acquire 42 new TV stations—including stations in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, the three largest media markets in the country—making Sinclair far and away the largest owner-operator of TV stations in America.

As it happens, Sinclair—a company notorious in the industry for cutting costs and running lean newsrooms—is already experimenting with how to outsource the news. In 2016, Sinclair decided that it would outsource the local newscast for WNWO, its NBC affiliate in Toledo, Ohio, to a centralized studio located a state away in South Bend, Indiana.

The results have at times been shaky. The website FTVLive.com has documentedthe slip-ups and mistakes that appear to result from Sinclair’s efforts to produce a local news program from a studio operation more than 150 miles away. Here are two examples:

 

[thoughtone]

source: Chicago Tribune

Column:
Amid public outcry, feds should kill Sinclair bid to buy WGN owner Tribune Media

Sinclair Broadcast Group needs federal approval to complete its acquisition of Tribune Media. (William Thomas Cain / Getty Images


Hundreds of consumers are offering some simple and direct advice to federal regulators eyeing Sinclair Broadcasting Group’s proposed acquisition of locally-based Tribune Media: Kill this awful deal — now.

They’re right.

As this column stated in August, a Sinclair-Tribune merger will create the country’s largest television group — an anti-consumer and anti-competitive broadcasting powerhouse with access to an unprecedented 72 percent of the U.S. households.

Nothing much has happened to change the basic construction of this agreement. But in recent weeks, the battle lines between stakeholders and shareholders have gotten sharper.

Federal Communications Commission and Justice Department to scuttle the bid, which includes WGN-TV.

Bending to consumer outcry, the FCC stopped its 180-day transaction clock, the time frame the agency typically sets for reviewing applications, for 15 days and is allowing public comments until Nov. 2.

And boy, are people commenting.


Over the years, I’ve covered many types of industry mergers and it’s not unusual for orchestrated opposition from employees, communities, unions and so on.

Still, it’s rare to see such a grass-roots campaign — more than 1,500 comments and counting, and the vast majority coming from concerned individuals. Mostly, they are tremendously worried about the quality of their local news, weather and other information should a Sinclair-Tribune merger come to be.

Yes, even in a world of streaming, cable and other communications razzle-dazzle, studies show there is a huge swath of people dependent on over-the-air news and information.

Protesters fret Sinclair will hack away at their stations by cutting costs to the bone, dumping well-known and trusted talent and providing homogenized, one-size-fits-all content that doesn’t relate to their markets or concerns.

Those worried about such matters won’t get much comfort from Sinclair’s Oct. 5 FCC filing.

The 400-plus page document nods to the possibility of selling some TV stations to get government approval (there’s about 10 markets where Sinclair and Tribune stations overlap). It’s also raring to start cutting costs once the deal is approved — although in the FCC document it redacted the exact amount it intends to lop. (The Chicago Tribune is separate from Tribune Media.)

Sinclair intends to whack at high-level “duplicative” corporate jobs, eliminate unnecessary facilities or real estate and reduce the number of suppliers, according to the filing. Sinclair goes on to say it won’t get into staff reductions until after it’s reviewed Tribune Media’s operations, but states that the merger will “facilitate the streamlining of Sinclair’s news gathering infrastructure.”

Anyone hear an axe sharpening?

While the majority of the anti-merger FCC comments are from individuals, there are also groups rallying against the sheer size and sweep of the deal. It’s a coalition that includes satellite, cable and wireless industries, media organizations, content producers and distributors, independent broadcasting groups and some public-interest organizations.

Cable and satellite providers worry Sinclair-Tribune will charge much higher rates for the newly configured network’s content. Producers fear the company will use its market dominance to pay a lot less for on-air shows and content.

What continues to bug people is the Sinclair-Tribune pact came to life only because in April the FCC reinstated the so-called UHF discount, which helps a combined Sinclair-Tribune entity get get closer to the ownership cap that blocks a single broadcaster from controlling stations reaching more than 39 percent of TV households nationwide.

Others argue that Sinclair’s hard-right political bent, which espouses an ultraconservative point-of-view within commentaries and features that it insists on airing throughout its network, is going to lack editorial balance and strongly favor the Trump administration’s policies.

Sinclair dismisses such political contentions as overblown.

Pretty soon, the public venting will be over and federal regulators are going to have to make a decision, probably by year’s end.

If I had to bet, chances are this deal will be approved with some face-saving tweaks, especially if President Donald Trump’s handpicked FCC chairman supports the transaction.

Still, it isn’t over until it’s over.

The FCC and the Justice Department’s antitrust department should realize how deeply unhappy and concerned the American public is about a booming Sinclair-Tribune franchise.

They should listen hard to what’s being said and then kill this bad deal.

 

[thoughtone]

source: Media Matters

Sinclair-owned stations give platform to serial misinformer Peter Schweizer of Breitbart


Dozens of Sinclair-owned local news stations are running a package featuring serial misinformer Peter Schweizer, a senior editor-at-large for Breitbart, making debunked allegations about Hillary Clinton’s role in a deal selling U.S. uranium holdings to Russia while she was secretary of state. This package is the latest in Sinclair’s attempt to infect local media with inaccurate right-wing commentary.

Schweizer, whose work has been funded in large part by hedge fund billionaires Robert and Rebekah Mercer, used the segment to hype debunked allegations from his error-riddled book Clinton Cash. He implied that there was “cronyism” or “corruption” surrounding the selling of the Uranium One company to a Russian nuclear company while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state because the company, Rosatom, donated to the Clinton Foundation. Schweizer, who has a long history of pushing misinformation, baselessly claimed, “There was a quid pro quo culture at the Clinton Foundation, that large donors were getting favors in return for those donations.

<iframe class="video-embed" src="https://www.mediamatters.org/embed/clips/2017/10/20/56577/wnwo-nbc24n-20171020-schweizer" width="480" height="360" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen scrolling="no"></iframe>

PETER SCHWEIZER: People often assume that corruption or cronyism is a victimless crime, that it’s just politicians making money and what’s the big deal? The problem is, in this particular case, there are huge national security implications.

SARA CARTER: Peter Schweizer, the man behind the book Clinton Cash, says the U.S. government should take a closer look at the deal that allowed the Russian nuclear company Rosatom to purchase Uranium One.

SCHWEIZER: Even at the time this deal was approved in 2010, it was massively controversial. You had a dozen members of Congress who ran national security committees, you had U.S. senators who wrote letters to the [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] raising questions about the fact that this deal was being looked at.

CARTER: One of the points of contention for people investigating the Clintons’ potential connection to the deal were speech fees Bill Clinton received from a Russian bank while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state and sat on the panel that approved the transaction. Schweizer says a Clinton Foundation review, done at the behest of Chelsea Clinton, shows a lack of transparency in their contributions.

SCHWEIZER: There was a quid pro quo culture at the Clinton Foundation, that large donors were getting favors in return for those donations.

CARTER: When Schweizer helped The New York Times with an article on the Clinton Foundation in 2015, a spokesperson for the Hillary Clinton campaign told them no one has ever produced a shred of evidence supporting the theory that Hillary Clinton ever took action as secretary of state to support the interest of donors to the Clinton Foundation. The Clinton Foundation did not respond to attempts for comment.

However, as numerous fact-checkers have previously pointed out, “The State Department was one of nine agencies on the committee that approved the deal,” and “there is no evidence Clinton herself got involved in the deal personally, and it is highly questionable that this deal even rose to the level of the secretary of state.”

The segment, which was reported by Sinclair Broadcast Group subsidiary Circa, is the latest in Sinclair’s history of pushing right-wing commentary that has been compared to “propaganda.” The broadcasting company also has selectively omitted stories that don’t fit its agenda. Recently, Sinclair has made a series of conservative hires, including discredited former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson and former Trump White House aide Boris Epshteyn. In July, Sinclair announced it would be tripling the number of segments featuring Epshteyn that are sent to stations as “must-run” packages -- a typical practice for the company. There has also been reporting that Sinclair could partner with Breitbart, as the latter site’s chairman and former White House chief strategist, Steve Bannon, has sought to expand his “platform for the alt-right” to “compete with Fox News from the right.” Both Bannon and Schweizer worked at the Government Accountability Insitute, a venture that was funded by the Mercers.

Sinclair’s dealings with the Trump administration run deep. During the campaign, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner reportedly “struck a deal” with Sinclair to “secure better media coverage” for then-candidate Donald Trump in exchange for “more access to Trump and the campaign.” Additionally, President Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Committee has pursued deregulatory efforts that could make it easier for the Sinclair empire to grow as it seeks to merge with Tribune Media.

Circa, and in particular its correspondent Sara Carter, have become a favorite source for others in right-wing media, especially Fox News’ Sean Hannity.