Later this week, we’re joining a group of allies to announce the total number of people who’ve asked the FCC to reject the dangerous proposed merger between right-wing Sinclair Broadcasting and the Tribune Company.
According to our records, your signature is missing. Can you add your name before this week’s FCC meeting, where Trump’s FCC Chair wants to vote to undo regulations on media monopolies?
Trump’s FCC Chair wants to undo the FCC’s own regulations that prevent media monopolies — thus allowing this merger, where Sinclair would reach over 72 percent of U.S. households.
A local reporter on a Sinclair-owned television station in Alabama ran a report where she claimed, based on exactly four interviews, that she could not find a single person in Alabama who believed the charges against Moore. Breitbart News is unsurprisingly amplifying this story from a local report across the country.
[O]ne of the things that makes Sinclair dangerous is that it owns local stations, so its propaganda feels more authentic, while being harder to identify—Sinclair products don’t come with a big Sinclair label on them a la Fox News. They come labeled ABC or CBS or NBC, so they’re pulling credibility both from a national affiliation and from a local home. Then their work gets grabbed up by Breitbart to circulate in the far-right echo chamber. And they’re trying to grow and spread their poison further.
Keep fighting,
Chris Bowers
Executive Campaign Director, Daily Kos
Below, you can see a version of the email that my colleague Paul Hogarth sent to many of you last month
The ultra-conservative Sinclair Broadcasting company owns 193 television stations across the country, and currently reaches 40 percent of American households. If the FCC approves its merger with the Tribune Company, Sinclair will reach 72% of U.S. homes.
This is media consolidation at its worst. The FCC deadline is approaching in the first week of November, so now is the time for us to push back.
Sinclair is infamous for injecting its right-wing views on local TV affiliates, such as requiring news shows to run a daily “terrorism alert.” If this merger goes through, they will do even more to influence news coverage that could affect the 2018 and 2020 elections.
