So WGN is already part of a vast right wing conspiracy now? C'mon. Heaven forbid they run any story which showcases a different viewpoint, since people will flip out on social media. Sinclair's executive board is not watching WGN's every move. They do not own the station.
Of course WGN management is going to try to downplay the impending merger. While I agree with the sentiment of Hoover's tweet, and I could not see any anchor at WGN reading such a canned and inauthentic statement, it's probably not the best idea to talk about future bosses like that in public. I think Paul Rennie, Jen Lyons, etc. are trying to protect their people by telling them to keep their (legitimate) concerns on the DL. At least don't tweet them out. On the other hand, if they start to embrace Sinclair with open arms, Twitter will demand an immediate boycott of the station and all of its advertisers. So the play is to stay quiet and continue with business as usual.
I've seen a lot of calls to preemptively boycott WGN because of this deal, because people have read some hot takes about Sinclair online, but are unwilling to wait and see how much their news product actually changes, and make their own judgement. I might be the only one, but I'm starting to get tired of the constant speculation and fear-mongering regarding this deal. Feder brings it up every other week it seems, but really only offers "what-ifs" and ominous predictions. Is that really helpful?