Every year, local television news stations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting conduct short surveys among viewers to help guide the year\u2019s coverage.<\/p>\n
A key question in each poll, according to David Smith, the company\u2019s executive chairman: \u201cWhat are you most afraid of?\u201d<\/p>\n
The answers are evident in Sinclair\u2019s programming. Crime, homelessness, illegal drug use, failing schools and other societal ills have long been core elements of local TV news coverage. But on Sinclair\u2019s growing nationwide roster of stations, the editorial focus reflects Smith\u2019s conservative views and plays on its audience\u2019s fears that America\u2019s cities are falling apart, according to media observers, Smith associates, and current and former staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal company matters.<\/p>\n
Smith, an enthusiastic supporter of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump who has built Sinclair into one of the largest television station operators in the country, purchased the Baltimore Sun last month. In a private meeting with the Sun\u2019s journalists, he urged them to emulate coverage at the local Sinclair station, Fox45, which in 2021 produced a documentary titled simply \u201cBaltimore Is Dying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sinclair\u2019s local network of 185 stations across the country makes it an influential player in shaping the views of millions of Americans, especially at a time when local newspapers are rapidly being gutted \u2014 or closed altogether.<\/p>\n
As Sinclair increasingly fills the void, it offers its viewers a perspective that aligns with Trump\u2019s oft-stated opinion that America\u2019s cities, especially those run by Democratic politicians, are dangerous and dysfunctional.<\/p>\n
\u201cSinclair stations deliver messages that appeal to older, White, suburban audiences, and they play up crime stories in a way that is disproportionate to their statistical presence,\u201d said Anne Nelson, a journalist and author of \u201cShadow Network: Media, Money and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right.\u201d \u201cAll of it is fearmongering and feeds into a racialized view of cities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nelson, who has spent decades studying conservative media and political propaganda, said that local TV news reports traditionally cover local crime stories, but Sinclair\u2019s programming does it \u201cmore than usual, and with a particular message.\u201d She said that the lack of local papers has changed the role of local TV news.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you remove those papers, which would historically feed local radio and TV news programs, you\u2019re left with Sinclair and the internet,\u201d Nelson said.<\/p>\n
Smith, in his meeting with Sun employees, credited the broadcaster\u2019s success to its audience surveys and editorial approach, according to a recording of the gathering obtained by The Washington Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019ve learned anything,\u201d Smith told the assembled staffers of his experience running Fox45, \u201cis despite the fact that people might say it\u2019s a crazy, right-wing, looney-tunes [station] \u2026 they\u2019re only interested in, \u2018What\u2019s going on in my schools? Why is crime so bad? And who in government is doing what they shouldn\u2019t be doing?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith did not respond to requests for an interview. A spokeswoman for Sinclair said that the company\u2019s stations \u201care committed to accountability reporting, exposing issues within the community, and seeking answers and solutions for viewers.\u201d She added, \u201cOur aim is to help create safer communities, improve public education and the overall quality of life, which are universal, nonpartisan concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sinclair\u2019s large network of local stations tend to cover societal problems in similar ways, experts say. A 2019 study by researchers at Stanford and Emory universities showed that a Sinclair acquisition of local stations resulted in \u201csubstantial increases in coverage of national politics at the expense of local politics\u201d and \u201ca significant rightward shift in the ideological slant of coverage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Research demonstrates that local news reports enjoy a greater level of trust than national outlets. That allows Sinclair to capitalize on that trust, experts say, even as it some of its coverage delivers a particular worldview.<\/p>\n
In Seattle, a local Sinclair station devotes a special section on its website to \u201cCrisis in the Classroom,\u201d focusing on dysfunction in city schools, and \u201cProject Seattle,\u201d which zeroes in on homelessness. The homepage is often heavy on crime stories.<\/p>\n
The station\u2019s focus on urban problems in Seattle gained national attention when the Sinclair station produced an hour-long documentary in 2019 titled \u201cSeattle Is Dying,\u201d which described how \u201cthe appeal of the city is giving way to rampant crime, homelessness and disgrace.\u201d The Seattle Times, the main local newspaper, published a rebuttal after the documentary aired, pointing out that Seattle\u2019s crime rates had declined significantly since the 1980s and 1990s.<\/p>\n
In Baltimore, a majority-Black city where Democrats have long dominated local politics, the local Sinclair station features \u201cProject Baltimore,\u201d a regular segment that focuses on the failings of the public school system.<\/p>\n
A recent dispatch from Project Baltimore noted that \u201cBaltimore is a tough city. Nearly a quarter of its residents live in poverty. The murder rate is one of the highest in the nation. And schools are not immune to the city\u2019s failures.\u201d<\/p>\n
While none of that is false, Fox45\u2019s reporting can leave out context, said Liz Bowie, a former Sun education reporter who is now covering the same topic at the Baltimore Banner, a not-for-profit newsroom that launched in 2022 and hired much of its staff from the Sun.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of their education stories lack context, and therefore the public gets a very different impression of the school system in Baltimore,\u201d said Bowie, who wrote about education for the Sun for more than 20 years.<\/p>\n
A Sinclair spokeswoman pointed out that Project Baltimore has won dozens of awards, including nearly 30 regional Emmy Awards, seven regional Edward R. Murrow Awards and nine Associated Press Awards.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been at it for seven years and we are very proud of our work,\u201d Chris Papst, the lead reporter for Project Baltimore, wrote in an email. Sinclair\u2019s spokeswoman noted that Sinclair\u2019s stations in Baltimore and Seattle are at the top of the ratings in their respective markets, a sign that the coverage is resonating with viewers.<\/p>\n
In 2018, Sinclair made national headlines when it directed dozens of its local anchors to read a script that warned viewers that \u201csome members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control \u2018exactly what people think.\u2019\u201d The statement appeared to echo Trump\u2019s critique of the media and implied that Sinclair was trustworthy in a way that other sources were not.<\/p>\n
The network also employed Boris Epshteyn, a former Trump adviser, as its chief political analyst and directed its stations to air Epshteyn\u2019s interview with Trump and his related commentary, according to former employees and internal memos. Sinclair dropped Epshteyn as a political analyst at the end of 2019, saying that the company wanted to focus on local investigative projects.<\/p>\n
Aaron Weiss worked as a news director for Sinclair in Sioux City, Iowa, in 2013 and 2014. He remembered Sinclair\u2019s main offices in Maryland delivering video segments that he and his fellow news directors referred to as \u201cmust-run\u201d pieces.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of them were biased and from a conservative viewpoint, but many of them were just bad,\u201d Weiss said in an interview. \u201cThe orders from corporate were just that you must run these; the anchors must read them exactly as written. So that\u2019s when the warning bells started to go off.\u201d<\/p>\n
He specifically recalled that \u201cthey were running this absurd \u2018terror alert desk\u2019 just stoking fear that the terrorists are out to get you.\u201d Weiss said that, after less than a year with Sinclair, \u201cI just couldn\u2019t look myself in the mirror and had to go find another job.\u201d He now works for a nonpartisan environmental conservation nonprofit in Denver.<\/p>\n
Israel Balderas worked for Sinclair\u2019s WPEC CBS 12 station in West Palm Beach, Fla., from 2013 to 2016. He said he was asked to interview Trump, then the 2016 Republican nominee, for a segment that was to run at the top of the evening news on Sinclair stations around the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe central news desk gave me the questions I should ask him, and I thought, \u2018These are softball questions,\u201d Balderas said in an interview. \u201cOne of the questions was: \u2018Why do you think the media is so hostile to you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Balderas told his supervisors that he wasn\u2019t going to ask questions that weren\u2019t his own but would take their suggestions under consideration. As a result, he said, he lost the assignment. \u201cIf you followed the script, your stories got prime placement, and if you didn\u2019t, there was certainly retribution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Balderas is now a journalism professor at Elon University in North Carolina, where he said he teaches his students the dangers of companies like Sinclair buying local outlets.<\/p>\n
A representative for Sinclair said that the accounts of Weiss and Balderas are \u201cnot relevant to today as the news landscape and our audience\u2019s appetite has evolved over time. The former employees, both of whom left the company several years ago, have no insight into the practices of today\u2019s newsrooms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith, 73, announced in mid-January his acquisition of the Sun, Maryland\u2019s largest daily newspaper, from Alden Global Capital, an investment firm with a reputation for buying local newspapers and slashing staff.<\/p>\n
The announcement surprised most of Smith\u2019s colleagues at Sinclair, according to three people at the company who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss Smith. He purchased it and associated properties with his own funds and with a minority investment from conservative commentator Armstrong Williams.<\/p>\n
When Smith addressed the Sun\u2019s staff, he told them, \u201cI haven\u2019t read the newspaper in 40 years. Literally have not read the newspaper,\u201d except for \u201cmaybe four times since I started working on trying to buy this place,\u201d according to the recording. Nevertheless, he declared that the publication overlooked stories that readers crave about crime and government dysfunction.<\/p>\n
Smith inherited Sinclair from his father, Julian Smith, who started operating his first local TV station in 1971. The younger Smith and his brothers eventually purchased their parents\u2019 controlling shares in the company and used acquisitions to grow it into a national player.<\/p>\n
Raised in the Bolton Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, the younger Smith attended City College high school. In the spring of his junior year, the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spurred violent riots in the city. Army and National Guard troops quelled the violence, and the episode left an impression on Smith, according to two associates who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Smith\u2019s background. He has spent much of his adult life living in rural areas around Baltimore.<\/p>\n
Smith isn\u2019t a major donor to national political campaigns. Records show that he last made campaign contributions in 2018, when he donated to a few Democrats along with a mostly Republican slate.<\/p>\n
But tax forms show that his family\u2019s foundation contributed to conservative advocacy groups, including more than half a million dollars to Project Veritas, a right-wing organization known for undercover sting operations. The foundation also contributed $121,000 in 2018 to Moms for America, an activist group that says it \u201cempowers moms to raise patriots and promote liberty\u201d and has pushed to remove books it finds controversial from public schools.<\/p>\n
Smith is also a major force in Baltimore politics, where he has funded ballot measures to impose term limits on city officials and to shrink the size of the City Council.<\/p>\n
Smith has been quietly funding at least two lawsuits that have been covered extensively by Sinclair\u2019s local station with no disclosure of the connection. The first accuses Baltimore City Public Schools of defrauding taxpayers, and the second targeted a 2020 Baltimore mayoral candidate for accruing pension service time from a different job while working for the Baltimore police department.<\/p>\n
Both of Smith\u2019s funding arrangements were secret until the Baltimore Banner reported the stories after the Sun acquisition became public. A Sinclair spokeswoman said that Smith wasn\u2019t involved in any of the reporting or editorial decisions, that the local station was unaware of Smith\u2019s funding, and that it would include a disclosure statement in future coverage.<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s involvement in local initiatives shows that \u201che really cares about the issues and is invested in the city,\u201d Williams, Smith\u2019s partner in the Sun deal, said in an interview.<\/p>\n
But some former Sun journalists noted that Smith\u2019s acquisition of the publication was ironic given how adversarial he was when he was the subject of its stories.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese guys were more likely to threaten you when you called than talk to you,\u201d said David Zurawik, a longtime media critic at the Sun who is now a professor at Goucher College. \u201cIt\u2019s a Fox News wannabe. That\u2019s their model, a political tool rather than a journalistic platform.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laura Wagner and Elahe Izadi contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Every year, local television news stations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting conduct short surveys among viewers to help guide the year\u2019s coverage. A key question in each poll, according to David Smith, the company\u2019s executive chairman: \u201cWhat are you most afraid of?\u201d The answers are evident in Sinclair\u2019s programming. Crime, homelessness, illegal drug use, failing schools […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1149,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}