Fmr Sinclair News Director Warns: They ‘Co-Opt The Credibility’ of Local Anchors to ‘Promote a Political Agenda’
Former Sinclair news director Aaron Weiss: “The problem with what Sinclair does is they co-opt the credibility that local anchors have built up in their communities over years and decades and use that credibility to promote a political agenda” https://t.co/jEatUknxJU pic.twitter.com/YgOw9fx9C2
— New Day (@NewDay) April 4, 2018
Aaron Weiss, a former news director at a local station who quit after it was bought by Sinclair, appeared on CNN’s New Day to explain what it’s like to have the broadcasting group begin to influence coverage.
In 2013, Weiss was a news director at a station in the Midwest that was bought by Sinclair, when “we started getting these must-run pieces everyday that would come down from corporate.”
“The must run pieces were generally political,” he explained. “Some of them were pre-produced packages from corporate, some of them were scripts that anchors were expected to read. And the expectation was that they would be read entirely, untouched, without any oversight.”
Weiss added that the scripts were of terrible quality, “but corporate expected us to run them untouched.”
He continued that the scripts were not local, but “entirely national, and they did have a conservative slant.” Weiss said that while he has no problem with conservative or liberal slanted news, what Sinclair does is more insidious:
“The problem with what Sinclair does, is they co-opt the credibility that local anchors have built up in their communities over years and decades, and use that credibility to promote a political agenda. And that, to me, is what it so ethically inappropriate about what Sinclair does.”
New Day host Alisyn Camerota asked Weiss what he thought when he saw the viral video showing anchors at Sinclair-owned stations reciting a scripted anti-media promo, the former Sinclair employee replied, “my heart broke.”
Watch above, via CNN.
[image via screengrab]
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