by slg on 6/18/21, 3:58 PM
As the video description says "Found the clip, sharing it here." We probably shouldn't link to someone who just stole this clip. On the other hand, the original clip was posted on Deadspin, which was mismanaged so badly that the entire staff ended up resigning roughly a year after they first posted this clip so I don't want to link to them either. So instead I will point to the author of the original article that contained this video, Timothy Burke [1][2]. He has an insane setup for capturing television broadcasts and does a lot of great work like this to highlight the most interesting and troubling aspects of news and sports television.
[1] - https://twitter.com/bubbaprog
[2] - https://www.patreon.com/bubbaprog
by dfxm12 on 6/18/21, 6:08 PM
by tboyd47 on 6/18/21, 2:03 PM
Relevant here is an article by Huffington Post from 2012 criticizing a bill to update the Smith-Mundt Act which prohibited the US government from spreading propaganda to American citizens. The congressmen were complaining that if other countries can propagandize Americans, our government should have the same right. Their update would effectively remove that prohibition. The bill was swiftly passed and made law.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/propaganda-public-diplomacy_b...
by legitster on 6/18/21, 3:43 PM
I worked with someone who worked in a local news studio. They told me that A LOT of the stories came pre-scripted.
Imagine you are a local news studio. You went from being responsible for 30 minutes of content a day to (often) upwards of two hours. And you only have a skeleton crew of on staff writers. To stretch the time, corporate offers a library of "stock" news stories and scripts to choose from.
I am told that local studios still have a lot of choice on what they use, but yeah, you're going to find a bunch of different studios grabbing the same script and not making any changes. Grain of salt.
by nisa on 6/18/21, 2:28 PM
by MattGaiser on 6/18/21, 4:17 PM
by chiefgeek on 6/18/21, 3:53 PM
I've consciously not watched news for at least the last 20 years. I never watched it much before that. My life is better because of it. It's nothing but fear mongering.
by clan on 6/18/21, 4:18 PM
There is a recent Last Week Tonight covering sponsored content on local news stations which is worth a watch as well.
https://youtu.be/sIi_QS1tdFM
by JohnTHaller on 6/18/21, 3:48 PM
This is Sinclair Broadcasting Group which operates "a total of 193 stations across the country in over 100 markets (covering 40% of American households), many of which are located in the South and Midwest". It has had "must run" segments that all stations are required to run coming down from management that are generally right-wing talking points. In a John Oliver segment about Sinclair he stated that he "did not know it was possible to dip below the journalistic standards of Breitbart". Sinclair also struck deals with the Trump family and campaign to promote them during the 2016 campaign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group
by underseacables on 6/18/21, 2:28 PM
I’ve always felt the media is generally reading from the same script. The News, locally or national, is more of a theatrical production than actual information.
by CrazyPyroLinux on 6/18/21, 5:56 PM
This type of thing is why I like shows like
https://unfilter.show/ that not only are "independent" but also provide some meta-commentary on the production of the news stories themselves, rather than just using the headline to jump off onto whatever rant they feel like.
by phkamp on 6/18/21, 4:53 PM
The correct description for that kind of operation is not "news stations" but "propaganda outlets".
by nayuki on 6/18/21, 11:36 PM
by temp8964 on 6/18/21, 4:15 PM
by RickJWagner on 6/18/21, 9:37 PM
by Quanttek on 6/25/21, 1:10 PM
All these stations are owned by the Sinclair Group, a right-wing broadcasting corporation that is eroding the editorial independence of local stations in order to run segments like these or the "terrorism alert desk" [1]. John Oliver had a great video on them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogcAlso, the following quote is just utter BS, trying to draw a distinction where there is none:
> Reminder: "While it is extremely dangerous to our democracy..." the US is actually a Constitutional Republic.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ3hb6LhPGo
by desktopninja on 6/18/21, 4:40 PM
Nothing new I guess. Its like youtube reposting lol
by reureu on 6/18/21, 8:27 PM
But is it extremely dangerous to our democracy?
by jakeogh on 6/19/21, 1:19 AM
The national 'news' players do the same thing, except they (must) bother to reword it.
by tablespoon on 6/18/21, 3:46 PM
[2018]
by swiley on 6/18/21, 2:23 PM
Televised news is harmful manipulative crap. Just like most Google products you should avoid exposing yourself to it.
Of course I feel a little bad telling people this because it's pretty easy to avoid. Once TV news becomes unpopular they'll probably start shoving the same stuff into something that was previously mostly free of that kind of thing.
by guscost on 6/18/21, 5:59 PM
This also happens nationally, and on the web. Today one paraphrase is "Rumors are swirling about Dong Jingwei (董經緯)".
by myfavoritedog on 6/18/21, 7:23 PM
Not surprising since those are all Sinclair stations just repeating canned statements.
What’s really scary is when mainstream media outlets from a variety of corporate entities all repeat the exact same talking points that are exactly in sync with one political party.
by Black101 on 6/18/21, 8:03 PM
by eplanit on 6/18/21, 3:48 PM
Newspapers do this a lot with Associated Press stories -- they're filler for what you don't have the capacity to create yourself. I don't really see a problem with it.