A very interesting yet detailed article about the Sinclair Broadcast Group from GQ

[AaronQ 282]

http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/200511/sinclair-broadcast-group-news?currentPage=1

What are your thoughts about the article?

[ABC 7 Denver 1729]

"Chances are you've never heard of Sinclair Broadcast Group."

 

There they go being wrong in the first statement. lol xD

[Ntropolis 599]

It should be noted that this article is from 2005, when "NewsCentral" and "The Point" were still around...

[AaronQ 282]

It should be noted that this article is from 2005, when "NewsCentral" and "The Point" were still around...

Ah, thanks, I wasn't paying attention on the date when the article was posted.

[PIXfan 34]

It should be noted that this article is from 2005, when "NewsCentral" and "The Point" were still around...

 

While it is true that the article is old, to me there are parts of it that are relevant even to this very day.

[AaronQ 282]

 

 

While it is true that the article is old, to me there are parts of it that are relevant even to this very day.

Thats is true, especially with the LMA and SSA, also they brought back Mark Hyman with their propaganda bullcrap which it is called now "Behind the Headlines."

[Mrtraveler01 738]

Thats is true, especially with the LMA and SSA, also they brought back Mark Hyman with their propaganda bullcrap which it is called now "Behind the Headlines".

 

It's times like this that I'm glad KDNL doesn't have a news department anymore.

[PIXfan 34]

I would certainly say that an update to this article is in order, but I am not too sure if Wil S. Hylton, who penned the original article, still works for GQ.

[Jess 1116]

I think parts of this are extremely relevant today. First, it's an examination of a standardization program that went entirely too far in that direction and negatively impacted many of their local newscasts. It's a portrait of a rather faceless company that had some... interesting viewpoints.

 

But for all the talk about partisan viewpoints, it's this that sticks out:

 

The story of Sinclair, then, is not merely about what happens when news and opinion merge. It's about what happens when news and opinion are both subverted, and something else takes over.

 

Replace "Sinclair" with "Fox News", "MSNBC", or the more generic "cable news", and it's even more relevant today. I think Fox News is more appropriate here - yeah, even in 2004 we knew they were right wing, but they're now getting to the point where they're running hit pieces on President Obama and throwing softballs to Romney. Even my mother, who's in her late 60s and bought into the Fair and Balanced stuff, has sensed that it's gotten nastier. I'm not saying that MSNBC is better - it's not - but Fox News is clearly the closest to Sinclair's mindset back then.

 

I don't get political often, but my opinions on Fox/MSNBC, my opinions on our two political parties, and my opinions on this election come down to the same three words.

 

"They both suck."

[T.L. Hughes 903]

Thats is true, especially with the LMA and SSA, also they brought back Mark Hyman with their propaganda bullcrap which it is called now "Behind the Headlines."

 

Sinclair has taken the whole SSA and LMA thing too far, to the point where they operate virtual triopolies in a few markets. You would think that if they wanted to expand they'd stick to just running one or two stations in a market. The question is whether the FCC will ever investigate the company again because they basically haven't learned their lesson (though what Sinclair getting away with SSAs, LMAs and virtual triopolies is really more the FCC's fault for not punishing Sinclair more severely for the Glencairn investigation and not placing the same restrictions on operational agreements as those that apply to legal duopolies). Most of us can see that Cunningham Broadcasting (the restructured Glencairn) pretty much functions no different than Glencairn, the FCC should have forced Sinclair to divest all stock and contractual agreements with that company, but instead now we have Cunningham clones with Deerfield Media and Sinclair, Mission Broadcasting and Nexstar and American Spirit Media and Raycom. A future investigation and an undoing of the practices Sinclair started could be complicated by the fact that the Smith brothers have comrades in Washington. As far as "Behind the Headlines" goes, the only difference between that and "The Point" is that it only airs once a week (or at least what KOKH does with the segment as it buries it during their Saturday 9 p.m. newscast).

 

I think parts of this are extremely relevant today. First, it's an examination of a standardization program that went entirely too far in that direction and negatively impacted many of their local newscasts. It's a portrait of a rather faceless company that had some... interesting viewpoints.

 

Sinclair should have realized that NewsCentral was going to be a failure in the first place, considering how it affected viewership of their stations' newscasts and the reaction that stations had towards it. Most Sinclair outlets lost their entire weather and sports departments under NewsCentral (leaving just anchors and some reporters), only having them reinstated once it shut down. The only thing is while NewsCentral's news and sports segments were done for all of their news-producing stations, I'm not sure how the weather segments worked out; Sinclair had at least 40 stations at the time they started NewsCentral, so they would have had a lot of meteorologists to do the segments, because the segments appeared to be live when KOKH participated in the format (ironically, a few NewsCentral meteorologists wound up working at Sinclair stations once their weather departments were reactivated, Chuck Bell and Scott Padgett each briefly worked for KOKH after NewsCentral ended, Bell worked for the station before NewsCentral also).

 

The whole local-national format did wreak havoc and resulted in Sinclair no longer truly investing in news on their stations affiliated with the post-1986 networks (though the SSAs and LMAs with Big Three stations didn't help either); before and during NewsCentral, Sinclair emulated Tribune Broadcasting in regards to which network affiliates produced their own local newscasts, as they had Fox, UPN and WB affiliates with their own news programming. The WB and UPN stations dropped news entirely as NewsCentral ended, as did at least one Fox station WPGH. Nowadays, none of their CW and MyNetworkTV affiliates produce news and only four of their Fox stations have news departments (WBFF, KOKH, WZTV and KABB), though KABB will be excised from that list once their purchase of WOAI goes through.

 

The funny thing is that I'm amazed that Sinclair hasn't gone into bankruptcy (they almost did in '09) with the glut of stations they have and the ones that they're still in the process of acquiring, but that seems like the inevitable prophecy.

[Mrtraveler01 738]

I think parts of this are extremely relevant today. First, it's an examination of a standardization program that went entirely too far in that direction and negatively impacted many of their local newscasts. It's a portrait of a rather faceless company that had some... interesting viewpoints.

 

But for all the talk about partisan viewpoints, it's this that sticks out:

 

 

 

Replace "Sinclair" with "Fox News", "MSNBC", or the more generic "cable news", and it's even more relevant today. I think Fox News is more appropriate here - yeah, even in 2004 we knew they were right wing, but they're now getting to the point where they're running hit pieces on President Obama and throwing softballs to Romney. Even my mother, who's in her late 60s and bought into the Fair and Balanced stuff, has sensed that it's gotten nastier. I'm not saying that MSNBC is better - it's not - but Fox News is clearly the closest to Sinclair's mindset back then.

 

I don't get political often, but my opinions on Fox/MSNBC, my opinions on our two political parties, and my opinions on this election come down to the same three words.

 

"They both suck."

 

I don't know of another TV group that did some of the partisan hackery like Sinclair did when it forced it's ABC stations to preempt an episode of Nightline because they were listing all the soliders who died in Iraq up to that point mainly becaus they thought it was making the Republican War in Iraq look like a bad thing (remember back then we were supposd to be loyal to our President 100% during wartime).

 

But that's not even the worst example of the Partisan hackery. As the article mentioned, it made all of it's affilates preempt primetime programming including KDNL here in St. Louis to run a "film" that basiclaly accused John Kerry of treason.

 

I mean we didn't even have a news department anymore by that point but Sinclair made 100% sure that it's propaganda film aired here.

 

Sorry but it's going to be a great day for mid-size cities nationwide when Sinclair goes bellyup.

 

(sorry for the rant guys)

[Action Newsroom 1301]

For my two cents: I always wondered why you guys make many put shots at Sinclair (or Sincrap...or Sinturd...or Sinfromhellclair as you put it.) But now that I read the article, I now see what you guys mean. I man really, after reading about the movie slamming Kerry and the propaganda it gives to all its stations, it to me makes Fox News look like good natured people. So I finally get it.