You may have seen that viral video compilation of almost 200 Sinclair anchors from across the country reciting the same lines, bashing other media outlets as “fake news.”
Kirk Clyatt, a former anchor at the network operator, told Cheddar the company has been exerting this type of editorial control for nearly two decades.
“I have real questions, even going back to 2001 before I noticed a real hard turn to the right, about what their real motivation is,” Clyatt told Cheddar.
Back then, one of the owners compelled a station “to do a story about pollution in the Potomac river in far western Maryland,” said Clyatt.
While seemingly innocuous, the family that runs Sinclair owned property on the river.
“They were board members of a coalition called ‘Safe Waterways Maryland,’ [but] none of...those facts were included in those stories.”
And that was just one example of the kind of biased slant the management at Sinclair imposed on journalists, Clyatt said.
“It happened after 9/11 when the anchors were compelled to make a statement about how they felt that they were supporting President Bush.”
Coverage across Sinclair Broadcast Group, founded and owned by the Smith family, is often unabashedly conservative and pro-Trump.
The company owns nearly 200 local TV stations, and it could get even bigger. The media giant is awaiting a nod from the Justice Department for its proposal to acquire Tribune Media, which would bring another 42 stations under its umbrella.
“There’s a tremendous fear in the newsroom,” said Clyatt.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/former-sinclair-anchor-responds-to-backlash-facing-broadcast-group).
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down the agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal. Russell Vought is the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought directed the CFPB in a Saturday night email to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama created it following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
