One of the most important aspects a television viewer can expect from his or her local news broadcasts is trust. Trust from the anchorpeople who will provide the viewer with the news. News as free from bias or slant as is possible.
Over the weekend, a video clip showing the newscasters and anchorpeople at Sinclair Broadcasting’s owned television stations performing a “must read” about how their stations’ news is fair, and that other news outlets – including social media and other non-Sinclair-based stations – are providing fraudulent news.
It was discomforting to watch. And as I watched the video, hoping against hope that I wouldn’t see any broadcasters from Sinclair’s local station, WRGB … there she was. At 1:11 of this video clip.
Yep… right here. Talking about a threat to democracy.
Yep. Liz Bishop, the longtime veteran anchor for WRGB.
Ugh. And in that moment, I realized something sad.
The objectivity of WRGB as a news outlet just went out the window and down the street.
Here’s what’s going on. All of Sinclair Broadcasting’s news outlets are required to announce “must-read” editorials and commentary as the parent company sees fit. The script is mandatory, you simply insert your newscaster’s name, the local station, and what you want them to say.
And as you can see by the video embedded above, all of Sinclair’s team are required to read these announcements as necessary. Sinclair stations also have segments on ‘Terrorist Alerts,” as well as commentary on Sinclair’s Circa network – including commentator Lara Trump.
Yeah, she’s married to one of them, it’s either Donald Jr. or Eric. I lose track.
So what does the Sinclair message mean? It means, as far as I’m concerned, that they are using their trusted anchor people – the ones that appear in such broadcasting campaigns as “here for you” and “we’re on your side” and “news you can trust” and all those other homilies – and, with that must-read statement, weaponized that trust into commentary at best, editorial at least, propaganda at worst.
And the strange thing is… this happens in media all the time. News is not 100% straight and balanced. There are subtle opinions and manipulations in the broadcast or in the print. Did an employee from a major sponsor get caught in a DUI? Did a county executive take a kickback from a car dealership that he insists was a loan? Where is the focus and where is the bias?
Now I’m not saying, and please understand this, that Liz Bishop has become the 2018 equivalent of Tokyo Rose. What I am saying, however, is that if you did not know that this was a “make read” announcement from Sinclair, you would assume that Liz Bishop wrote that statement herself and read it on the air herself.
A similar example of why this bothers me involves when bloggers receive promotional items from companies. Let’s say a blogger received two tickets to ride on, for example, a holiday Christmas train. You don’t suppose that blogger might turn around and write a favorable piece about riding that holiday Christmas train, with the assumption that the blogger’s readership might not realize that the piece was essentially paid for by an outside interest?
Trust me, I’ve seen what happens when you piss off your corporate overlords. I quit the Times Union blog farm because of too many issues involving Big Hearst. So I understand that Liz Bishop is just doing her job as a news anchor for the company that bought WRGB from Freedom Communications so many years ago.
But now that I know that Liz Bishop is more than willing to read a statement that works ONLY if nobody else knows that the same statement was fed to seven dozen other Sinclair stations around the nation… then I know that I can not trust WRGB’s newscasts. Are the words coming out of their mouths at Channel 6 their own, or were they placed there by their corporate parents, for whatever surreptitious reason they may so choose.
This is sad. WRGB was the station I grew up with. The station of Ernie Tetreault and Ed Dague, of Bob McNamara and Howard Tupper, of TV Tournament Time and Pick-A-Show and, yes, Answers Please.
But now, it’s just another shill corporate puppet from Sinclair.
If I want local news from now on, I’ll watch WTEN or WXXA or WNYT or Spectrum News.
Because as long as Sinclair Broadcasting owns WRGB…
I can’t trust that what they call “local news” really came from the local area.
Maybe we were always at war with Eurasia after all…
Gee wiz, don’t get your tighty whiteys in a knot. They are being told what to say and do.
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Read Keyboard Krumbs blog on this subject
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Sad…just plain sad. It’a not just the Dodo bird that’s extinct.
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Bring back G E MYSTERY THEATRE!
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The words coming from your local broadcaster, someone who lives in your community, not NYC or LA or DC, have greater potential for trust and accountability. This is fundamentally different, Dave, even from the must-carry stuff Sinclair has forced on them. It comes from hometown girl, NYS Broadcaster Hall of Fame, barrier-breaker, 45 years of experience Liz (frickin’) Bishop. She may agree with the statement, or not, but the Deadspin video effectively showed the scary Newspeak element of this action.
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What do you want, Chuck — that she should risk her job over this? Or that her news director?
Should defy the bosses? How about the station’s GM, who may depend on performance bonuses to make his money?
I’m not sure we can really compare this to blogging for the TU. These people actually work for these “corporate overlords.” WRGB is not a “shill,” they are owned by the company.
I hate CBS 6 — and honestly, I’m not a huge fan of Queen Liz — but they’re not trading their integrity for something stupid, like blog traffic, they’re trading it for a paycheck.
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Ha! https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/sinclair-tv-anchor-suddenly-begins-reading-news-in-russian
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That does it; the jig is up. No more Liz Bishop news watching for me. I want news, not propaganda.
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How did you see this? It was only about a week ago that you said you were never going to watch WRGB again. Your posts are Fake News. Sad!
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Saw the video clip on line. From that, you can see that Liz Bishop is clearly in the video clip.
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Liz Bishop, Sarah Sanders, Kellyanne Conway…I never knew you were such a misogynist!
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You left out a hero from my past from WOKO, Forest Willis.
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I agree that it is sad to see. Liz is nearing the end of her career and I suspect she was given a choice. Read the statement and stay in the air trading her reputation for a continued paycheck or find herself moving swiftly into the next stage of her life, whatever that is for her. Same with her co-anchors. That’s the way it works when you work for someone else. So I’d have respected her more to stand up to them and say No they could not buy her integrity. But on the other hand I can;t say that I would have made that decision knowing it meant the end of a long run. The irony is maybe it will be her downfall anyway.
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In my opinion, Liz Bishop is a trusted local news reporter. Liz is someone a young aspiring journalist or any career women can really look up to in today’s world. She simply read a statement saying that the news station, WRGB, tries to bring factual news, not fake news. If we believe any news they broadcast is slanted or bias, they would like to know about it and viewers should contact them. I see nothing wrong with this statement, regardless whether she wrote it or Sinclair wrote it. This whole thing has been blown way out of proportion by people who need to get a life!
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