Faux News Spews; I Need Booze

[Cartmann99]

From the link @JMarie posted:

Quote

Sinclair is attempting to work out a deal to purchase 42 television stations owned by Tribune Media Co., which includes WPHL 17 in Philadelphia. If the FCC allows the deal, valued at $3.9 billion, to go through, Sinclair would gain access to more than 30 additional television markets and become the country’s largest broadcaster by far, reaching about 72 percent of homes nationwid .

[Cartmann99]

How many pairs of kneepads did Hannity bring with him?

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I agree that Sinclair is scary. I won't watch news on the local affiliate as I don't want to boost their numbers and don't trust them anyway. John Oliver did an interesting segment on them last year.

 

[JMarie]

5 hours ago, JMarie said:

There was an article in my local paper about Sinclair.

http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/sinclair-pennsylvania-fake-news-script-cbs21-nbc6-fox56-20180330.html

And here's a list of all the Sinclair-owned channels (they're alphabatized by city, not state)

Oops, forgot to post the link for the channels we need to avoid!

http://sbgi.net/tv-channels/

[smittykins]

Ouch.  They own stations in Rochester and Syracuse(I live between them).

[47of74]

Yeah, Sinclair owns the Cedar Rapids/Dubuque/Waterloo market CBS and Fox affiliates.  Which I wouldn't watch for news if you paid me.  Guys like Conrad Johnson probably would have died of shame if they had seen how fornicated up things have gotten.

KGAN's news operation used to be something to be proud of, and won two Peabody awards for their reporting.  One was for developing a program called The Secret of Flight and the other was for investigative reporting that exposes a sewer solvent scandal.  Nowadays they're just a bunch of repeaters who spew any bullshit that fuck face's groupies tell them to.   

 

  

[JMarie]

http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-fox-ingraham-boycott-20180402-story.html

Quote

Fox News is standing by its embattled host Laura Ingraham, who has seen advertisers flee her show over a tweet aimed at Parkland, Fla., school shooting survivor David Hogg.

"We cannot and will not allow voices to be censored by agenda-driven intimidation efforts," Jack Abernethy, co-president of Fox News, said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. "We look forward to having Laura Ingraham back hosting her program next Monday when she returns from spring vacation with her children."

Ingraham has gone on a scheduled break after a week in which she came under fire for mocking David, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, after he mentioned in an interview that he was not accepted by four University of California schools.

David responded by listing Fox News advertisers and urging his Twitter supporters to call for a boycott of her program "The Ingraham Angle." Ingraham issued a tweet apologizing for remarks about David, but the student-turned-gun control activist did not accept it.

Some advertisers have left the show since Thursday to protest Ingraham's remarks, while other sponsors have steered clear of her program so as not to be associated with the controversy.

Although more than a dozen advertisers have stated publicly that they have pulled their commercials from "The Ingraham Angle," far more have stayed away without making any public announcements.

Johnson & Johnson, Liberty Mutual, Office Depot, Expedia, Nestle and Hulu are among the advertisers that have pulled out of the show.

On Friday, the program had only two spots — both from IBM — that were not direct response advertisers (those that typically sell products and services through a 1-800 number and are usually less sensitive about where their spots run).

The situation has become so dire that even the studio that made "Chappaquiddick," a controversial movie about the 1969 accident involving Ted Kennedy that killed young political campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne, has pulled its ads from the program.

One person familiar with the situation who was not authorized to publicly comment said the boycott has not yet resulted in a significant financial hit.

This person said no advertisers have pulled their dollars from the network but have simply moved from "The Ingraham Angle" to other programs on the Fox News schedule. Most of the advertisers are out because they want to avoid the controversy associated with the story and could revisit the situation in a few weeks after Ingraham returns.

Abernethy's statement is meant to convey that Ingraham will return whether the advertisers come back or not. Fox News hired Ingraham to be a provocative commentator who appeals to conservative viewers, and if she is shut down by advertiser resistance its other hosts will become vulnerable. Ingraham took over the 10 p.m. Eastern slot on Fox News in October.

Fox News executives will not comment beyond the statement, but privately they believe Ingraham's offense does not approach the issues that brought down hosts Bill O'Reilly or Glenn Beck, who both lost their shows after advertisers pulled out.

O'Reilly was at the center of a sexual harassment scandal that engulfed the company and was fired after a report that he and Fox News had paid $13 million in settlements to current and former employees who filed complaints against him.

Beck was fired after advertisers fled his show in response to a number of wildly extreme statements he made, including that former President Obama was a racist who hated white people.

[GreyhoundFan]

Laura has Russia behind her: "Russian bots are tweeting their support of embattled Fox News host Laura Ingraham"

Spoiler

Embattled Fox News host Laura Ingraham has found some unlikely allies: Russian bots.

Russian-linked Twitter accounts have rallied around the conservative talk-show host, who has come under fire for attacking the young survivors of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting. According to the website Hamilton 68, which tracks the spread of Russian propaganda on Twitter, the hashtag #IstandwithLaura jumped 2,800 percent in 48 hours this weekend. On Saturday night, it was the top trending hashtag among Russian campaigners.

The website botcheck.me, which tracks 1,500 “political propaganda bots,” found that @ingrahamangle, @davidhogg111 and @foxnews were among the top six Twitter handles tweeted by Russia-linked accounts this weekend. “David Hogg” and “Laura Ingraham” were the top two-word phrases being shared.

Wading into controversy is a key strategy for Russian propaganda bots, which seize on divisive issues online to sow discord in the United States. Since the Feb. 14 Parkland shooting, which claimed 17 lives, Russian bots have flooded Twitter with false information about the massacre.

Researchers who follow the issue found that in the days after the shooting, #Parkland, #guncontrolnow, #Florida and #guncontrol were among the top hashtags used by Russia-linked accounts. (Previously, those accounts had been focused on special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.)

“This is pretty typical for them, to hop on breaking news like this,” Jonathon Morgan, chief executive of New Knowledge, a company that tracks online disinformation campaigns, told the New York Times. “The bots focus on anything that is divisive for Americans. Almost systematically.”

Ingraham came under harsh criticism after she mocked Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg, who had spoken out about his disappointment at not being accepted by four University of California schools, including UCLA. Hogg has a 4.2 GPA and a 1270 SAT score.

... < Laura's stupid tweet >

Ingraham's criticism came amid a broader effort by gun-rights activists to discredit Parkland teens pushing for stronger gun-control laws.

In response, Hogg took to Twitter to call on the companies that advertise on Ingraham's Fox News program to pull their ads. Within days, Johnson & Johnson, Nestlé, Hulu, Jos. A. Bank, Jenny Craig, Ruby Tuesday, Miracle-Ear and several other companies pulled their commercials from the show.

Ingraham later apologized, but Hogg isn't having it. He called Ingraham's apology an insincere “effort just to save your advertisers.”

And this weekend, Hogg called Ingraham a “bully” on CNN. “It's disturbing to know that somebody can bully so many people and just get away with it, especially to the level that she did,” he said. “No matter who somebody is, no matter how big or powerful they may seem, a bully is a bully, and it’s important that you stand up to them.”

Ingraham is not on the air this week. She told viewers that she was taking an Easter break, a message confirmed by Fox News to my colleagues at The Washington Post.

 

[fraurosena]

This article is from last July, but it's still very relevant right now.

Trump’s Allies Are Taking Over the Media and Creating Their Own Reality

Quote

On July 17, the Idaho television station KBOI tweeted a story about a would-be robber who allegedly “arrives early at banks to find doors locked.” Even more confusing than the indecipherable English was the photo the station ran: that of Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson being arrested at a protest in Baton Rouge (the robbery suspect was not even black). Having had the mistake called to their attention, KBOI apologized, although another story on its website used the same image of Mckesson beneath the headline “Officer wounded in deadly ambush sues Black Lives Matter.”

That KBOI is owned by Sinclair Broadcasting Group should surprise no one who has ever paid attention to the company—a category, alas, that includes precious few people. Sinclair is a far-right media operation that until recently has flown under the radar of all but the most studious media critics. It received brief scrutiny in December, when it was revealed that Jared Kushner had struck a deal with the company to give it special access to Donald Trump in exchange for a promise to run Trump interviews across the country without commentary. These were especially important to the campaign in swing states like Ohio, where Sinclair reaches many more viewers than networks like CNN. More recently, the station made news when its vice president and director, Frederick G. Smith, whose family owns the company, made a $1,000 donation to Greg Gianforte’s House campaign the day after he assaulted Ben Jacobs of The Guardian for the crime of asking a question about Trumpcare. Now the company is poised to take over Tribune Media in a $3.9 billion deal. Add Tribune’s 42 stations to the 173 that Sinclair already owns, and you’ve got the single biggest conglomerate of TV stations in America, reaching 70 percent of all households in the nation.

Though it receives a fraction of the attention lavished on Fox News, Sinclair is, in its own way, every bit as awful. It forces its affiliates to run regular segments by a former Sinclair executive, Mark Hyman, along with those of Boris Epshteyn, who, until recently, was a “senior adviser” to Trump and is now a full-time apologist for anything and everything the president says and does. In an impressive recent segment on HBO’s Last Week Tonight, John Oliver noted that Sinclair sends scripts to its local news anchors to be delivered verbatim together with the clips it wants shown. Among these are “questions” like “Did the FBI have a personal vendetta in pursuing the Russian investigation against President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn?” When the Trump administration approves Sinclair’s merger—which it certainly will, despite the fact that the merger violates current rules about concentration of ownership—local television news will be further delocalized as it grows simultaneously more right-wing and Trump-friendly.

A similar fate awaits Time Inc. if it is sold to either of what are reported to be its most energetic suitors. The first of these is American Media, which, run by David Pecker, might as well be run by Trump himself. Earlier in the year, Kushner offered to kill a story about Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski’s then-secret romance in Pecker’s flagship tabloid, the National Enquirer, if the Morning Joe co-hosts would personally apologize to Trump for their critical coverage. This extraordinary collusion was only recently revealed by Scarborough and Brzezinski in The Washington Post, after our idiot president went after Brzezinski for allegedly “bleeding badly from a face-lift.” Pecker denies all this, but it is entirely consistent with the tone of the coverage that Pecker has given his friend since Trump first announced his presidential campaign. (Representative headlines: “Donald Trump—His Revenge on Hillary & Her Puppets” and “Top Secret Plan Inside: How Trump Will Win Debate!”)

It’s hard to imagine a worse combination than a terrible tabloid tied to Trump and right-wing extremism, but if you were forced to find one, it would be the billionaire father-daughter combination of Robert and Rebekah Mercer, who infamously bankrolled Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway and are the moneybags behind Breitbart News. The Mercers’ Renaissance Technologies recently snapped up nearly 2.5 million shares of Time Inc., creating speculation that they, too, were angling to buy the publisher of Time, People, and Fortune, among other titles.

So on the one hand, far-right extremists with next to no commitment to traditional journalistic standards are seeking to expand their empire to the point where their version of “reality” will soon overwhelm the reporting from what remains of the mainstream media. On the other hand, those institutions—under intense financial and political pressure—are increasingly caving in to demands that they tailor their coverage to make it more consistent with the fantasy world promoted by Trump and his acolytes. CNN head Jeff Zucker, recently profiled in The New York TimesMagazine as a lonely defender of truth under fire from a hostile White House, not only guided Trump’s career at NBC, he practically turned CNN over to the huckster during the campaign. In addition to all the free airtime he gave Trump, Zucker hired both the hapless Jeffrey Lord, to act as Trump’s de facto on-air surrogate, and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who was simultaneously being paid by the campaign and enjoined by a nondisclosure agreement from telling the truth at the time of his hiring. Zucker’s defense? Lord and Lewandowski, far from informing CNN viewers regarding facts and evidence, are instead acting as “characters in a drama,” as if news programming were no different from The Sopranos.

MSNBC, meanwhile, has been on a spree of hiring right-wing hacks like Hugh Hewitt, Charlie Sykes, Greta Van Susteren (since fired), and George Will, who will join Elise Jordan, Steve Schmidt, Michael Steele, Rick Tyler, Nicolle Wallace, Scarborough, and the execrable Mark Halperin on this allegedly “liberal” counterpart to Fox. Meanwhile, Fox is still Fox, despite the departures of Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly, among other sexual predators formerly in the station’s employ.

Finally, inside the White House press corps, faux-news organizations like the racist Breitbart, Laura Ingraham’s silly LifeZette, Tucker Carlson’s dumbass Daily Caller, and the ridiculous One America are treated as the real thing, while actual journalists are barred from being allowed to do their jobs. And when they do manage to do their jobs and expose the criminal idiocy and dishonesty that passes for “policy” in this administration, they find themselves threatened with retributory violence from troglodyte Trump supporters—all the worse for them if they happen to be Jews.

And yet, where are you reading about this? Who besides a British comedian with a weekly show on pay cable is raising this particular alarm? Almost no one. The frog is in the water and the heat is turned up high. But it’s not a frog; it’s the possibility of truth even entering our political discourse and determining the fate of our democracy that’s dying a slow death.

I did a little bit of digging into the Sinclairs (emphasis on little).

The patriarchal founder was Julian Sinclair Smith. After his death, his son David Deniston Smith became the company's Executive Chairman. If that name sounds familiar, think of an AKA used in a certain NDA...

David D also happens to have ties to Ajit Pai: 

Quote

Prior to Ajit Pai's appointment as chairman of the FCC, Smith had met with Pai to discuss deregulation of the FCC's media ownership rules. This meeting, plus Sinclair having been granted additional access to Donald Trump's presidential campaign, resulted in accusations that Sinclair was currying favor with the Trump administration in exchange for deregulation of the industry.

David D is also has upstanding morals:

Quote

The president of Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., which owns the local Fox television affiliate, was arrested Tuesday night and charged with committing a perverted sex act in a company-owned Mercedes, city police said.

David Deniston Smith, 45, of the 800 block of Hillstead Drive in Timonium, who also is Sinclair's chief executive, was arrested in an undercover sting at Read and St. Paul streets, a downtown corner frequented by prostitutes, Baltimore police said yesterday.

Smith and Mary DiPaulo, 31, were charged with committing unnatural and perverted sex act. [...]

Police said DiPaulo ran across the street to a 1992 Mercedes, registered to Sinclair, and got in on the passenger side. Police followed the car onto the Jones Falls Expressway, where they said they witnessed the two engage in oral sex while Smith drove north.

[...]

(side note: Oral sex is 'unnatural and perverted'?   Uh-oh...)

[fraurosena]

Sweet Rufus!

He really is aiming for state run propaganda networks. Scary stuff. 

 

[smittykins]

 Considering who his BFFs are, this doesn't surprise me.

[AmazonGrace]

 

 

[JMarie]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

 

I noticed this Mark Steyn fella doesn't have an American accent.  I wonder if he considers himself one of the "virtuous ones" mentioned in the clip (though in all fairness, the Brits have been known to dabble in colonialism and imperialism).

[Cartmann99]

7 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Quote

 

(side note: Oral sex is 'unnatural and perverted'?   Uh-oh...)

Don't you read your Bible? When you are having sex with a person other than the spouse you promised Republican Jesus you'd be faithful to until death, said fornication can only be forgiven if it solely consists of acts that can possibly lead to pregnancy, and if you think about your grocery list during the fornication.

Also, no fancy dismounts, costume changes, or refunds are allowed. Also, too, be sure to practice your crying in case you get caught and have to fess up at a press conference with your aggrieved spouse by your side.

@47of74 will be along shortly to sing us a little song about fornicating fornicators, and the evils of said fornication. 

[47of74]

1 minute ago, Cartmann99 said:

Don't you read your Bible? When you are having sex with a person other than the spouse you promised Republican Jesus you'd be faithful to until death, said fornication can only be forgiven if it solely consists of acts that can possibly lead to pregnancy, and if you think about your grocery list during the fornication.

Also, no fancy dismounts, costume changes, or refunds are allowed. Also, too, be sure to practice your crying in case you get caught and have to fess up at a press conference with your aggrieved spouse by your side.

@47of74 will be along shortly to sing us a little song about fornicating fornicators, and the evils of said fornication. 

Sing a little song about forncating fornicators, @Cartmann99 ?  Your wish is my command. 

We're knights of the round table

We fornicate when e're we're able

We do routines and fornication scenes

With fornication impecc-able

We fornicate well here in Camelot

We eat ham and jam and fornicate alot

We're knights of the round table

Our fornicates are fornicate-able

But many times, we're given fornication

That are quite unfornicate-able

We're fornicating mad in Camelot

We fornicate from the diaphragm a lot

(dance sequence)

We're knights of the fornicating table

Although we fornicate a fable

We're not just fornicators

With royal mums

We've brains that are quite a-fornicate-able

We've a fornicating life in Camelot.

....I have to fornicate the pram a lot...

On second thought, let us not go to Camelot.  It is a fornicating place. 

[JMarie]

Hannity insisted, several times at the end of his show, that Ingraham will be back next week.  I think Ingraham's time slot may be losing viewers because Jason Chaffetz filled in last night, and is filling in tonight.  He didn't have any of the Fox News "big names" as guests last night, and he's about as interesting as uncooked rice.

[fraurosena]

Don't you love it when these sexual predators get their comeuppance?

 

[Cartmann99]

On 4/3/2018 at 9:09 PM, JMarie said:

  I think Ingraham's time slot may be losing viewers because Jason Chaffetz filled in last night, and is filling in tonight.

If Faux fires Laura, will they be truthful with their viewers, or will they just announce she's gone to live on a farm in the country? 

[JMarie]

9 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

If Faux fires Laura, will they be truthful with their viewers, or will they just announce she's gone to live on a farm in the country? 

At the end of every show this week, Hannity insists (multiple times) Ingraham will be back on Monday.  It's like how Trump insists some Cabinet member's job is safe, and then they're fired and/or resigned the following day.

[Cartmann99]

I did a search to see if she had someone filling in for her on her radio show. I listened long enough to hear that she has a guest host, and he will be back again tomorrow.

https://www.talkstreamlive.com/program/laura_ingraham

I figured if @JMarie can watch Hannity without developing an involuntary facial tic, I could briefly listen to wingnut radio to see if Laura was on. 

[JMarie]

No, I haven't developed a facial tic, but I don't really watch Hannity, either.  I usually fast forward and read the captions, or I watch for a few seconds, then quickly switch back to Anderson Cooper or Rachel Maddow.  And yay!  Look what Rachel did!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2018/04/04/rachel-maddow-beats-sean-hannity-takes-title-as-most-watched-cable-news-host/#6a77131e5eea

Quote

In March, The Rachel Maddow Show finished as the highest-rated show in cable news, with an average total audience of 3.058 million viewers--the show's best-ever performance in the 9 p.m. ET hour. FNC's Hannity was second, with 3.000 million viewers. Maddow also won among viewers 25-54, the demographic most valued by advertisers, finishing March with an average audience of 671,000 compared to Hannity's 616,000. CNN finished a distant third in the hour, with 382,000 viewers 25-54.

MSNBC has been experiencing a dramatic rise in ratings, finishing the first quarter of 2018 as the only cable news network to grow compared to Q1 2017: MSNBC ratings were up 30%, while both Fox News and CNN experienced declines.

In March, MSNBC's programming in prime time, daytime and total day all broke records for the network. The network's prime-time lineup averaged 2.398 million total viewers, finishing as the No. 2 network across all of cable TV. While Fox News continued its run as the top-rated network in cable news, MSNBC's prime lineup was up 8% from 2017, while both Fox (down 18 percent) and CNN (down 16 percent) were off year-over-year.

The March ratings results suggest Fox News' unrivaled status as the dominant force in cable news may be facing one of the strongest challenges in years.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Oh boy, Twitler will have a hissy about Rachel beating Shamity. Of course, he'll probably just say it's fake and that more people really watched Faux.

[GreyhoundFan]

I love Alexandra Petri's snarky satire: "A statement definitely not under duress from Sinclair"

Spoiler

Hello. I am Name A.

Readers of this column, Name of Column, are no doubt aware of the high quality of balanced journalism that Name of Column provides. It is our greatest responsibility to serve our local community here in Name of Place.

But I could not help noticing — on my own, totally unprompted! Turn off the teleprompter. I am going to speak from the heart. Wait a beat. Now continue.

There is a plague of biased, fake news in this country. For instance, a story that was shared recently implied that Sinclair Broadcast Group was forcing anchors at its stations across the country to read an ominous editorial on the air warning people about the plague of biased, fake news in this country. This is obviously false, as was the accompanying video showing them doing just that. Isn’t it possible that more than 100 people employed by a single conglomerate independently came to an identical conclusion about fake news, and could not wait to share it with their viewers in a smooth, natural tone, using what happened to be exactly the same words, and blinking a normal number of times? Yes. Yes is the answer to that question.

I am sad to see that at outlets NOT owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, people will say all manner of things! And they will not check their facts first. We always check our facts first with Sinclair, which lets us know if they are facts or just things we thought we observed in the world but were wrong about. It is so easy to be wrong. I thought for a long time that there were four lights in this studio, but Sinclair knew better.

Unfortunately, some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal agendas to control “exactly what people think.” It was important that that phrase be in quotes, quotes that I put there myself. I have no personal agenda to push. This is extremely dangerous to a democracy. Members of the media who use their platforms to push their personal agendas, I mean. This right now, where I warn you ominously about fake news in words that are definitely my own, is just a fine thing for a democracy.

Here at Name of Column, it is our responsibility to pursue and report the truth. We understand truth is neither left nor right. But definitely not left, and probably right. Our commitment to factual reporting is the foundation of our credibility, now more than ever. We look forward to continuing to bring you many good, true facts, like the fact that President Trump, a glorious machine of almost godlike proportions who may live to be 200 years old, is being unjustly maligned by mean harpies and would have accomplished even more things if the Democrats would stop obstructing him and let him lead.

The president’s skin is so clear and perfect that you can see each pore individually. He touched my hand and healed my scrofula. My old sick dog went to see him and is no longer sick, and now I am certain that he loves me back. Trump’s family partakes in the genetic miracle that is this man, and it is only fitting that they should be in positions of power. There has never been such a harvest. Everything that is wrong is the fault of immigrants or the Parkland teens. This country is the most glorious of all countries.

When President Trump has his military parade, I will cheer so loudly and so long. Personally, of my own volition. We must all line the streets. In the meantime, please, do not listen to any news from other outlets, foul liars in the pocket of Snowball the Pig and the men who control the weather.

We were going to do a report on potholes next, but of course that would be ludicrous, as there are no potholes now, in the age of Trump. If you drive over what you think to be a pothole, know that it is probably an agitator from the fake news media crouched beneath your car saying “BUMP” in a loud voice. I would not put it past them. They can just say anything.

What a terrifying thought: a news media that was able to say anything at all.

 

[AmazonGrace]

Fux cut Trump's speech in the middle of a peak drunk racist uncle rant.

 

[JMarie]

4 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I love Alexandra Petri's snarky satire: "A statement definitely not under duress from Sinclair"

  Hide contents

Hello. I am Name A.

Readers of this column, Name of Column, are no doubt aware of the high quality of balanced journalism that Name of Column provides. It is our greatest responsibility to serve our local community here in Name of Place.

But I could not help noticing — on my own, totally unprompted! Turn off the teleprompter. I am going to speak from the heart. Wait a beat. Now continue.

There is a plague of biased, fake news in this country. For instance, a story that was shared recently implied that Sinclair Broadcast Group was forcing anchors at its stations across the country to read an ominous editorial on the air warning people about the plague of biased, fake news in this country. This is obviously false, as was the accompanying video showing them doing just that. Isn’t it possible that more than 100 people employed by a single conglomerate independently came to an identical conclusion about fake news, and could not wait to share it with their viewers in a smooth, natural tone, using what happened to be exactly the same words, and blinking a normal number of times? Yes. Yes is the answer to that question.

I am sad to see that at outlets NOT owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, people will say all manner of things! And they will not check their facts first. We always check our facts first with Sinclair, which lets us know if they are facts or just things we thought we observed in the world but were wrong about. It is so easy to be wrong. I thought for a long time that there were four lights in this studio, but Sinclair knew better.

Unfortunately, some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal agendas to control “exactly what people think.” It was important that that phrase be in quotes, quotes that I put there myself. I have no personal agenda to push. This is extremely dangerous to a democracy. Members of the media who use their platforms to push their personal agendas, I mean. This right now, where I warn you ominously about fake news in words that are definitely my own, is just a fine thing for a democracy.

Here at Name of Column, it is our responsibility to pursue and report the truth. We understand truth is neither left nor right. But definitely not left, and probably right. Our commitment to factual reporting is the foundation of our credibility, now more than ever. We look forward to continuing to bring you many good, true facts, like the fact that President Trump, a glorious machine of almost godlike proportions who may live to be 200 years old, is being unjustly maligned by mean harpies and would have accomplished even more things if the Democrats would stop obstructing him and let him lead.

The president’s skin is so clear and perfect that you can see each pore individually. He touched my hand and healed my scrofula. My old sick dog went to see him and is no longer sick, and now I am certain that he loves me back. Trump’s family partakes in the genetic miracle that is this man, and it is only fitting that they should be in positions of power. There has never been such a harvest. Everything that is wrong is the fault of immigrants or the Parkland teens. This country is the most glorious of all countries.

When President Trump has his military parade, I will cheer so loudly and so long. Personally, of my own volition. We must all line the streets. In the meantime, please, do not listen to any news from other outlets, foul liars in the pocket of Snowball the Pig and the men who control the weather.

We were going to do a report on potholes next, but of course that would be ludicrous, as there are no potholes now, in the age of Trump. If you drive over what you think to be a pothole, know that it is probably an agitator from the fake news media crouched beneath your car saying “BUMP” in a loud voice. I would not put it past them. They can just say anything.

What a terrifying thought: a news media that was able to say anything at all.

 

The employees of Sinclair-owned stations aren't comfortable -- the producer of a Nebraska station resigned.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/04/05/sinclair-producer-resigns-over-companys-obvious-political-bias/23404177/

Quote

A television producer at a Sinclair Broadcast Group-owned Nebraska station has resigned because of the company’s “obvious” political bias.

Justin Simmons, a former KHGI-TV producer, told CNN he was concerned about Sinclair’s corporate mandated segments and that the promos warning viewers of “fake news” prompted him to resign on March 26.

“This is almost forcing local news anchors to lie to their viewers,” Simmons told the network.

In his resignation letter, he wrote that he was required to produce segments that would make him uncomfortable. He had to work on segments such as the “Terrorism Alert Desk,” which are considered “must-runs” at Sinclair.