Can you âquixoticâ? I knew you could.
Who the fuck is gonna read through all this bullshit? And if youâre explaining, especially in a tortuously long memo, youâre losing:
Memo from Sinclair SVP Scott Livingston to Sinclair newsrooms on Monday:
"I know many of you and your stations are now in the media spotlight after the launch of our corporate news journalistic responsibility promotional campaign. There is a lot of noise out there about our company right now, and what is lacking in that analysis is something we constantly preach; context and perspective.
The critics are now upset about our well-researched journalistic initiative focused on fair and objective reporting. For the record, the stories we are referencing in this campaign are the unsubstantiated ones (i.e. fake/false) like âPope Endorses Trumpâ which move quickly across social media and result in an ill-informed public. Some other false stories, like the false âPizzagateâ story, can result in dangerous consequences. We are focused on fact-based reporting. Thatâs our commitment to our communities. Thatâs the goal of these announcements: to reiterate our commitment to reporting facts in a pursuit of truth. A new Monmouth University Poll out today says Americans are concerned, in fact, 77 percent of the respondents believe âfake newsâ is reported at least occasionally in mainstream media. This is a concern that is shared by Democrats, Republicans and Independents. This poll underscores the importance of our journalistic responsibility effort. We hold ourselves to the highest standards of accuracy and fact checking.
Hereâs some context that our critics donât mention in their misleading, often defamatory stories about our thriving news operations:
¡ The critics donât talk about your journalism awards. They seem disinterested that in 2017 YOU won more than 400 awards, including 8 national awards for journalistic excellence.
¡ The critics donât talk about your audience growth: many of your news operations have gained audience consistently and steadily in recent years. We are very proud of this accomplishment and itâs a story our critics ignore. The February 2018 ratings period was a good one for us with more than a third of our stations gaining market share vs. the previous year.
¡ The critics donât talk about the capital investments and the staffing additions Sinclair has made in its newsrooms: we have expanded news by 92 hours in 16 markets in the last two years and we have added 78 news positions since 2015 date.
¡ Recent critics never mention our innovations â like Project Baltimore, Full Measure or Circa or other forward-thinking projects that could help us expand our audiences for decades to come.
¡ One thing the critics DO seem obsessed with is the roughly 8 minutes a week of clearly labelled commentary that Boris Epshteyn offers in our newscasts each week. The critics continue to say that his former affiliation with Republicans makes him a propagandist. But they never offer any perspective on Borisâ appearances. They never mention that ABC News Anchor George Stephanopoulos ran Bill Clintonâs Presidential campaign and served as a Senior Advisor to President Clinton for 4 years. Stephanopoulos now hosts an ABC political talk shows and co-anchors 10 hours of news a week for ABC. That is 10 hours of âmust runâ content that all ABC affiliates must carry each week hosted by a former advisor to President Clinton. We have no problem with Mr. Stephanopoulos anchoring these newscasts, but think it is odd that Sinclair critics seem to express zero outrage over this. Critics never talk about Chris Matthews, who worked for prominent Washington Democrats, including President Carter, before becoming an NBC show host. Why donât the critics of Borisâ at least offer this context? Why are they obsessed with the 8 minutes a week that Boris gets to offer clearly labelled commentary? Remember, no one is trying to hide Borisâ past political affiliations. We label him as a former Trump advisor. We are fully transparent about Boris.
¡ Regarding 2016 Presidential Campaign Coverage: Media reports have mischaracterized Sinclairâs coverage of the Clinton and Trump 2016 campaign saying that, âthe) Trump campaign made a deal with Sinclair for favorable coverage.â
â Three years ago, our national bureau in Washington D.C. began a weekly project called âConnect to Congressâ. Each week, when Congress is in session, we set up a camera in the Capitol Hill Rotundas and offer lawmakers a chance to speak directly to constituents in their districts, through our local stations. On many weeks, more than two dozen Democratic and Republican lawmakers participate in these direct interchanges with our stations in their respective districts. Some lawmakers choose not to participateâwhich is their optionâbut all lawmakers, regardless of party, are invited. In the spirit of this highly successful Sinclair project, we reached out to both the Trump and Clinton campaigns in the summer of 2016, offering both candidatesâand their surrogatesâ the chance to speak repeatedly, and directly, to local news viewers, in our Sinclair markets. The Trump campaign responded favorably to the opportunity and, as such, received more direct interaction with our viewers. The Clinton campaign, despite our repeated, documented attempts to arrange such interviews, participated at a much lower level; never once providing the candidate herself for an appearance on a Sinclair station.
â The Chairman of the Ethics Committee for the Society of Professional Journalists reviewed the Sinclair outreach to both campaigns and stated, in part, in December 2016, âAfter hearing from Sinclairâs representatives and viewing emails between the company and former Secretary of State Hillary Clintonâs campaign, I donât believe the interview arrangements fell outside what would be considered ethical journalism.â
Honestly, most of the Sinclair critics donât seem to do their own original reporting. Do you ever notice that a story written about Sinclair from a west coast publication will include a lot of the same talking pointsâoften the same wordingâ as a story written a week earlier on the east coast? These reporters arenât producing original journalism; they are aggregating often-flawed-reporting-content published by other media outlets, without fact checking itâor calling us to confirm any of it. By contrast, we have hundreds and hundreds of journalists in Sinclair, who go into the field each day, conduct their own original interviews --face-to-faceâand create truly original content for our their local audiences. Your original reporting is our core strength. Itâs why we are growing and our critics are increasingly becoming obsolete. Itâs why surveys show news consumers trust you more than they trust the bloggers.
Local news is at the heart of Sinclair. Our agenda is to serve our communities by sharing relevant information to alert, protect and empower our audiences. Thatâs our daily commitment. We live it and breathe it â each and every day. Thanks for all of the hard work and commitment to our viewers. Our viewers appreciate itâand I do too!
Please make sure to share this message with your staff."
Whatâs up with the watermarked image? Asking as a content creator whoâs absurdly fond of getting paid, eating, all that fun stuff.
Jesus, Sinclair corporate image management team, could you hire a freelance non-idiot to read over your stuff? Wording sameness is not the stone you want to throw right now.
âŚ[what] interesting word usements I structureâŚ
â Steve Martin, L.A. Story
Yes, letâs all damage our market penetration. Thatâs a perfect winning strategy.
Is this person a slow?
I admire Ms. McGrath for standing up for American values, knowing full well she may pay a price by not reaching some voters as a result. I hope she has a backup plan.
Iâm not sure I see this worrying Sinclair very much, since they seem to be about propaganda first, and profit second.
Wow. âResent the others, resent the others, resent the others, resent the others, resent the othersâŚâ
Iâm a little confused here.
If ad money is best spent motivating known or potential supporters to turn out, then Sinclair was never exactly the best possible buy for her. It was no better last week than it is now.
But if Step One in the Trumpaholic recovery program is Change the Fucking Channel, why not pop into the bubble and try to make a difference?
âŚwho will all laugh bitterly when they hear it.
I know a bright young journalist who clearly wants a job with this proto-vulpes. Anyone here on the comment board who will help M with his cover letter?
This is that combat aviator one. Doubt sheâs doing anything egregiously dumb here, or that they didnât consider the cost in exposure versus the national ink theyâre obviously getting by piggybacking on the controversy.
Yes, please help me. I donât words good. 
paging Mr. Cervantes
Youâre a bit of a troublemaker. I like that. 
Plaudits to candidate Amy McGrath. Perhaps we should star a national boycott of Sinclair Broadcasting stations and the sponsors who buy time on them. I bet we could get some good help from the young adults at Parkland H.S.
Maybe people watch more cable than local TV, like they do here?
UHF channels are all in saturated markets, there must be 40 of them here, so while they may have a potential audience I wonder what the actual may be. I doubt that pulling her ads hurt her at all.
I see what you did there.