Those contracts sound like court cases waiting to happen and the local anchors will have local community support.
Hurry. Up. Mueller.
explains why itâs so hard for TV anchors to refuse the Sinclairâs editorial edicts. They have contracts that penalize them if they quit.
Only in the great freedom-loving US of A is something like this legal. Anywhere else this would be considered bonded labor and would not only be illegal but whoever came up with this will be subject to criminal charges.
Maybe they could report on their own shitty employerâs way of forcing them to parrot these statements, subtly ridicule the entire exercise, let viewers know itâs not actual news, and therefore not really the job of a local news anchor to spout this garbage, or find their own ways to subvert this nonsense.
So not only would they not have a job in an industry that is rapidly shrinking but they would be penalized for standing up for the ConstitutionâŚfree press and all that??? I betcha âSinclairâ thinks they are âpatriotsââŚ
Have you done that much in your own professional life? Because anything the public would notice is certainly going to be noticed by the employer. Youâd be on the sidewalk with a box in your arms before you knew what had happened.
The article alludes to an unspecified burden of quitting beyond the loss of incomeâa noncompete clause, Iâd guess. And anyone whoâs ever quit a job over principle can attest to its being a high price already. This is not a problem of people being unwilling to do their jobs professionally. This is collusion between the administration and a major media conglomerate that wouldnât exist without manipulation of the FCC.
So itâs not âtrashâ as in âthrow away.â
Too bad. Thatâs what they need to do.
Bring back the Fairness Doctrine! And strict limits on how many stations one owner can have.
Itâs another example of how a lack of a labor union has benefited the owners and hurt the employees.
The anchors entered these contracts as journalists, not propagandists. It seems Sinclair may be the one in breach here.
Iâd love to see some of these affiliates ignore the must run segment and go all Ron Burgundy or Peter Finch in Network and improvise their own. Chances are it would garner higher ratings and a following.
Once upon a time, when the Federal Communications Act requirement that broadcasters act in the public interest meant broadcasters had to act in the public interest, this wouldnât have happened. But then Ronnie came in and changed the regulations implementing the public interest requirement to redefine âpublic interestâ as âspewing content of any kind, any kind at all as long as it doesnât involve boobies or the Seven Forbidden Words, into the airâ and then we got Hate Radio and Sinclair.
And this why it matter which party the president belongs to no matter how unhappy you are that your party didnât nominate someone who was so perfectly aligned with your views on every point that you swoon in adoration at the mere mention of his name. Because the president appoints the secretaries and undersecretaries (and the judges) who make 95% of the policy that affects peopleâs lives, and regardless of whether the president is a wretched coopted Wall Street corporatist centrist or an enlightened socialist beacon, party is going to determine who the overwhelming majority of those people are.
I filled out the âcontentâ comment form on the webbed of a local station that ran this, letting them know I wouldnât consider them a credible news source unless they declared independence from Sinclair on this kind of thing.
Full restoration of the FCC Fairness Doctrine will cure the ill of fascist propagandists like Sinclair; itâs as simple, and as complicated as that, starting with retaking congress in 2018.
Iâll explain this again but it never goes anywhere. The Fairness Doctrine was a prior restraint. The way the government got around the 1st amendment was with the notion of public airways. When we had 4 networks only and they used the public airways then the government could enforce the doctrine.
This is not the media landscape we operate in anymore. Most of what is broadcast is cable and other media and these days a lot of it comes from outside the US. If the Fairness Doctrine was reimposed it would only be possible to impose it on the same 4 networks therefore it would not be fair and would be now a prior restraint that was a violation of the 1st amendment because it would discriminate against those 4 networks when they compete with all the cable and other media now.
Iâd still like to see one or more of the sane, public-minded, progressive billionaires buy up a bunch of these stations (even with a hostile takeover) and restore them to actual news outlets.
Thereâs no reason why fascists have to own the airwaves and cable stations.
âEvery time you think television has hit its lowest ebb, something comes along to make you wonder where you thought the ebb was.â â Art Buchwald
What will Trump do if the time comes when he has to choose between Fox and Sinclair? Extend Executive Time so he can watch both?
non-compete clauses are standard in this industry. Iâm sure every on-air personality is under a non-compete and they are very enforceable.
The way to respond to this is exactly what they are doing. Leaking out the truth to so embarrass St Clair, that they stop.
If you live in the communities served by these stations, you can make a written record with the FCC asking that Sinclairâs broadcast license not be renewed. Trump wonât be POTUS forever (despite his intentions otherwise) and a future FCC might take this very seriously.
Write those letters.