As media criticism of Sinclair Broadcast Group mounted in the wake of video showing anchors at its stations looking like automatons as they mouthed a centralized script on fake news, President Donald Trump came to the Baltimore-based broadcasters defense.
So funny to watch Fake News Networks, among the most dishonest groups of people I have ever dealt with, criticize Sinclair Broadcasting for being biased. Sinclair is far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC, which is a total joke, he tweeted Monday morning.
If he thought he was helping the beleaguered broadcaster, he was wrong. In fact, he offered what might be considered evidence of the White House having an unusual rooting interest in a news organization and one whose expansion is now in his administrations hands.
Between July and December, I wrote a series of columns about what looked to me like the rise of a right-wing messaging machine that extended from the Trump White House to Breitbart News in digital, Fox News in national cable, and possibly Sinclair at the local broadcast level.
The first three legs were firmly in place and fully operational, but the piece de resistance would be a Sinclair group of more than 200 stations in cities nationwide. All that was needed to make that possible was Federal Communications Commission and Justice Department approval for the sale of Tribune Media to Sinclair. And it certainly looked like the Trump-appointed FCC chair, Ajit Pai, was working overtime to make that happen.
The overall goal for Team Trump appears to be the creation of a media system that would allow it to craft a message at Trump Tower or the White House and distribute it instantly through this burgeoning media machine via national cable on Fox, Sinclairs network of local TV stations, the presidents Twitter following, and videos spread throughout social media, I wrote on Aug. 11.
Such an information infrastructure would not only serve as a bulwark against criticism of Trump in the mainstream media today, it could also become a mighty force for right-wing messaging across the board. Conservative politicians and donors have long decried the lack of such a media apparatus beyond Fox News.
The power of Sinclair would be in having local, hometown anchors, who were known and trusted in the communities they served, mouthing the centrally crafted messages in lockstep.
I think thats why this Deadspin montage exploded through the media the way it did. It showed visually and aurally what that would look and sound like and it wasnt pretty.
Publications like Esquire and New York Magazine used the word propaganda in headlines to describe it.
Back in July, when I became convinced that I was seeing a messaging machine rising before my eyes, I used that word to describe what I feared with Sinclair naming Trump White House aide Boris Epshteyn chief political analyst and forcing its news-producing stations to carry his commentaries.
Since joining Sinclair in April, Epshteyn has consistently parroted Team Trumps position in Bottom Line With Boris segments, I wrote. Some of his commentary has come as close to classic propaganda as anything I have seen in broadcast television in the last 30 years.
Thats not so funny, Mr. President. Not so funny at all, if you care about democracy.
Such an information infrastructure would not only serve as a bulwark against criticism … it also could become a mighty force for right-wing messaging across the board.
