The return of Sinclair’s Mighty Wurlitzer
Public Notice and Judd Legum’s Popular Information assembled another stew of cookie-cutter commentaries from right-wing Sinclair Broadcasting’s local talking heads. Sinclair repackaged talking points from the Wall Street Journal’s widely panned June 4 article, “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Sipping,” questioning Joe Biden’s mental fitness. The sourcing is questionable. Conveniently, repetition obliterates questions:
Nevertheless, the Wall Street Journal piece was repackaged by Sinclair Broadcast Group and beamed into the homes of millions of Americans. Sinclair, which is controlled by right-wing media mogul David Smith, owns or operates 185 local television stations across 86 markets.
Sinclair repackaged the Wall Street Journal story through its centralized news team, known as The National Desk. The segment was then pushed to dozens of local news stations owned by Sinclair. Local anchors introduced the piece by reading from a nearly identical script. Again and again, the anchors say that the Wall Street Journal is “out with new reporting calling into question the mental fitness of President Joe Biden,” adding that the issue “could be an election decider.”
Watch:
By deploying this message across its 185 local stations, Sinclair acts as an effective distribution vector for right-wing propaganda.
A 2018 study published in the American Political Science Review found that stations purchased by Sinclair increase “coverage of national politics at the expense of local politics” and undergo “a significant rightward shift in the ideological slant of coverage.”
Delivering right-wing attacks on Biden’s mental fitness under the guise of “local news” is an extremely powerful tactic. While many Americans are distrustful of the national media, 71% believe that local news is accurate, including 78% of Democrats and 66% of Republicans.
You’ve seen this 1984-ish telescreen tactic before:
Great. Now news outlets will report the controversy. Morning Joe did a segment on the Sinclair spin today.
Judd Legum this morning posts a short thread on public misperceptions around crime and cites lack of coverage of falling crime figures as one possible cause. But one wonders how much Sinclair’s coordinated misinformation contributes.
“This week, the @nytimes published 18 STORIES on Hunter Biden’s trial and ZERO STORIES on the new FBI crime stats,” Legum writes under “Show more.”
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.