I always thought it was strange when I'd read news articles and it would say, "AP" or "Reuters". Why are newspapers so lazy to send their own teams around the world to report on the news, right? Keep fighting the good fight!
As someone who used to work for TR I’ll tell you that taking a Reuters information report and distributing it out to journalism outlets to reproduce with context and insight is far different than a parent media company shoving “must run” opinion pieces down the pipe. The TR/AP business model works that way for a reason. They don’t just do this in media but also are trusted in law, tax, and accounting. Every law firm in America has TR guidance on their shelves that states the facts of the law to help create a basis for their cases. However it’s up to the attorney from that point on to take the TR materials and create a case. TR doesn’t do that for them because they provide facts, not opinion. Their business model works because they are so irrefutable in the material they produce. So comparing an AP or a Reuters scoop to a Sinclair “must run” right wing opinion piece is like comparing James Harden to Royce White. That being said in this day and age of the Trump cult facts are considered the most dangerous form of media that there is to the right so it’s not shocking to see someone from the right trying to misrepresent those that provide said facts.
I think the local Houston stations do a better job of not leaning especially compared to the places I visit for business trips. KPRCs FB feed is CNN lite but most of that garbage doesn't make the broadcast.
Ignoring the reputation of the wire services, the local newspapers get to choose and pick which articles they run. Independent choice. They aren't forced to run an article. These Sinclari's owned local news stations, as already seen, will be forced to run some stories and PoV. I know you prefer distributed vs centralize. This is centralize and concentrated. You know the danger in that.
the left always gets spun up about the rubes being exposed to speech they don't agree with when GOP did well in 2010 elections, they went after tax exempt status of tea party groups when Trump won, they became obsessed with Fake News and putting pressure on social media to censor/curate content feeds they freaked out about Cambridge Analytica using data to target voters like Obama did now suddenly they're concerned about a centralized entity influencing local news, when every local paper relies on whatever spin the AP/Reuters wants to have they also love to go after ad sponsors/livelihood of anyone promulgating speech they don't like to try and shut them up the theme is always the same; find ways (perhaps legal, perhaps with market pressures) to curb the expression of these ideas idgaf because no one is forced to consume any of it, and I don't
I guess with half truths you can spin any narrative. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-campaign-use-tactics-cambridge-analytica/
Consumer do have a choice, more so than any other time in history. And that is good. Local papers and TV channel used to be the ONLY choice years ago. Not today. Your point is valid today, but not completely. Local channel broadcast over the air for free and there are a number of consumers (mostly poor and/or rural) that do not have another choice for their news. I don't know the number. Beside that, inertia tell me that most current viewers will continue to do what they have been doing. And I'm sorry, but I have seen enough to see that people aren't very good at independent thoughts and are very manipulable. I believe the damaging aspect of a monopoly in expressing a bias (worse propaganda) PoV across millions will happen, but hopefully not too much given more customer choices. Legally, this shouldn't be allowed. The FCC used a UHF loophole to allow Sinclair to broadcast to more than the 39% of American limit (can now go up to 78%, and is currently at up to 72%). Everything else you stated, I was just going to ignore it, but ... The IRS went after both conservative and liberal groups. Maybe you didn't hear about the targeting and abuse of the liberal groups? It's out there. But since they "went after" both sides and probably more, perhaps the problem is what criteria they use, are they too aggressive, and if they are abusing it and who is checking them. Congress, afaik, didn't enact anything or request some new process, or have some new regular oversight onto the IRS since this "scandal". My skeptical self is thinking because they prefer to have a scandal than to solve a problem (if it's even a big enough problem to solve). I've seen some freak out about CA. The reactions without understanding the differences is telling. That doesn't mean there isn't a clear and huge difference on what the Obama's team did vs the still yet fully known activities of CA. There is. On free speech... It is true that there is much more attention on fake news after Trump's victory. You can credit that to both Trump using the words constantly, and a serious concern about real fake news. It seems to me the freak out doesn't at all belong to one group. It's hasn't been all negative. I don't know what all has happen, but I know it does at least bring awareness to a real issue. Trump has clearly shown that he is obsessed with "fake news" and wanting to censor them. His constant attack on the press and some individuals for expressing their views is clearly known. The right seems fine with that, so I'm thinking the right isn't so into free speech, at least not during Trump's presidency. Both sides have call for boycott of what they don't like. This is hardly a tactic that belong to one side. ... your "always" is telling ... check your bias lens
100% agree, there is nothing Orwellian at all about a multi-billion dollar corporation advancing a political agenda by packaging it up as ah-shucks from-the-people community news and delivering it through thousands of news outlets. This is America and that's free speech. I never understood this. Why is that Obama can use data about likes and interests to ask for campaign donations but Trump isn't allowed to use the same data to create personality profiles of people and their friends for the purpose of delivering the most effective messages and news stories in swaying voters? It's the exact same thing. I really think it's a BIG double standard of the left.
It is laughable and ridiculous to draw any sort of equivalence between AP/Reuters wire distribution and what Sinclair is doing here. Fortunately, most people under the age of 50 rarely, if ever, watch the local news these days.
So you are back after posting bogus statistics about America's murder rate and what happens after you remove Chicago, Detroit, etc. from the statistics. Welcome back.
Read my post from earlier among many others that have explained exactly why. If you don't know the difference between a company that sells reports to news outlets vs a media parent company that forces "terror watch" segments on its subsidiaries than you are an idiot, or you just want to believe they are the same thing to try and prove a point. Here's Reuters business model for those who are too ignorant to know what Reuters is, and how they operate. Reuters has field reporters all around the world that can report facts instantly. 17 miners in Argentina die in a collapsed mine. Reuters gets the news, and sells that report that "17 miners just died in a mine in Argentina". The NYPost buys the right to use the scoop. NY Post reads: "Reuters Reports that 17 miners died in collapsed mine in Argentina... is the Government to Blame?" The NYPost is an editorial business. They don't have reporters all over the world tapped in to good scoups on everything that happens. Same with CNN, NBC, etc. Yes they do reporting too, but often they are relying on reporting outlets to supply them the facts that are happening fast so they can just worry about broadcasting the news with production and often opinion/insight. Thomson Reuters does the same thing with the law, tax, and accounting industry. They supply the tax laws, and changes that happen every year to their research products, so the CPA's don't have to do the research every year on the latest changes. Its the same thing with media reports. Sinclair on the other hand forces opinion pieces onto local news channels to shape a one-sided narrow minded narrative. There is literally NOTHING similar about what Sinclair is doing and what Reuters or the AP do. NOTHING.
