Published on Apr 5, 2018
Transcript:
There is a new video making the rounds of news anchors from Sinclair-owned TV stations, all saying the exact same thing.
All of them.
When you put the news anchor clips together, they are speaking in unison. So what is this video, why are these new anchors reading like drones, and is there a bigger issue here?
Let’s give it a Reality Check.
Next week we will break down the big picture, but today I want to show you the Sinclair news anchor clip and tell you what’s going on here in three main main points.
Before I get to my three points, let me say that I actually know some of the anchors in that video. Some work in Cincinnati for the the Sinclair station there. Others are in El Paso at the Sinclair station there. And some of those journalists, I have worked with before.
Okay, so point No. 1: So what is this video?
Well first, it’s not news. Clearly, this is a promotional segment which the stations are recording in order to express why they are unique. It is done everyday in local television stations.
What’s different about this promotional segment is that Sinclair clearly has one promotions director who is sending down the same copy to all its television stations. They seem to have thought that people in those markets would never know that anchors in multiple markets are reading the same thing. But thanks to the Internet, we know.
Point No. 2: this video is clearly evidence of the fact that these anchors from various markets are simply reading what they are told.
And that happens in every TV market in the country, every day.
Anchors have a job and that job is to sell the copy. But they are not allowed to change the copy. In fact, a friend of mine who works at one of those stations says that station management was required to have the script read, word-for-word, exactly how it was written. They couldn’t even substitute the word “hi” for “hello.”
Point No. 3: this video highlights the biggest problem with media consolidation.
When one company owns so many television stations, they have the ability to push messaging however they choose to vast parts of the country. Now, some people want to jump all over this because it’s Sinclair, which is seen seen as friendly to President Trump. But to raise the alarm over just Sinclair is disingenuous, because media consolidation has been happening for for years. And it’s not just Sinclair that controls messaging.
Next week, we’ll break down how local media consolidation is happening across America, and why decentralized media, thanks for cryptocurrency like Dash Digital Cash, is the answer.
That’s Reality Check. Let’s talk about that on Twitter and Facebook.