Sinclair is "injecting Fox-worthy content into the mouths of your local news anchor," he warned in a 20-minute segment on Last Week Tonight. And with its acquisition of Tribune Media, he says, through local newscasts it will reach more than 2.2 million every day, more than Fox News Channel does in primetime.
John Oliver Targets Right-Wing Sinclair News
Political satirist John Oliver ripped Sinclair’s national news operation on his weekly HBO show last night, citing examples of right-wing commentary and questionable news stories that Sinclair stations are required to run.
Sinclair is “injecting Fox-worthy content into the mouths of your local news anchor,” he warned in a 20-minute segment on Last Week Tonight.
Suggesting the station group is “the most influential media company you never heard of,” Oliver said it is big and getting bigger through its $6.6 billion acquisition of Tribune Media now awaiting FCC approval.
Once merged, Oliver said, Sinclair will reach 2.2 million homes though its local newscasts every night.
“[T]here are going to be even more good journalists having to see their hard work placed alongside Terror Desk nonsense just as there will be more unsuspecting audience members who will be getting a heaping dose of Sinclair content, possibly without realizing it,” Oliver said.
Sinclair’s Terror Alert Desk is a brief, nationally produced segment ostensibly about terrorism. But Oliver showed one item about a French mayor refusing to allow Muslim women to wear so-called cover-all burkinis on their beaches.
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“What the fuck?!,” Oliver said. “That is not about terrorism. It is just about Muslims. By that definition, terrorism is anything a Muslim does.”
According to Oliver, the Terrorism Alert Desk also ran another story on ISIS cutting nine teenagers in half with a chain saw, even though the story was unsubstantiated by any credible source.
“I did not know it was possible to dip beneath the journalistic standards of Breitbart. That’s like being too bad a chef to work at a carnival food cart.”
Oliver also cited news stories about a preacher in Tampa, Fla., who maintains that the Democratic party was to blame for slavery, the KKK and Jim Crow.
That story might have some merit in Tampa, but not in Sinclair’s many other markets as far away as Seattle where it ran, Oliver said.
Oliver targeted Sinclair’s two conservative commentators, Mark Hyman and former Trump insider Boris Epshteyn. Among the latter’s “wild claims” last year is his assertion that Obama carried North Carolina in 2008 only because of massive voter fraud, Oliver said.
The segment ended with video that Oliver said Tribune stations “probably should run” to alert their viewers of the imminent Sinclair takeover. It featured actor Steve Schirripa, best known for his work on The Sopranos.
“This station could soon be owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group so you might see this fuckin’ guy [image Mark Hyman] or this fuckin’ logo [Circa] or this fuckin’ desk [Terrorism Alert Desk graphic],” Schirripa said. “If you do, just know that wasn’t produced by this station because the people at this station know that local news should never be about cheap scare mongering or advancing a political agenda.”
Sinclair had not responded to a request for comment by press time.
Comments (9)
yin yu says:
July 3, 2017 at 9:55 am
Since Fox News has made it’s “great leap forward” into watered down, PC news-talk entertainment, the free speech haters of the radical left turn their sights on Sinclair.
Brian Bussey says:
July 3, 2017 at 10:09 am
subscriber based programming can be anything.
free over the air broadcast TV is transmitted over airwaves owned by the American people. that is why it is called mass media. Lying should be illegal.
Allison Coquet says:
July 3, 2017 at 12:06 pm
Yet, there are people who consistently get their current event news from people like John Oliver. Or is it just ironic that he’s more biased than the media he makes fun of?
As John Oliver would put it: “Calling John Oliver a political satirist instead of a left-wing propagandist is like calling Hannibal Lecter a carnivore instead of a cannibal.”
Cameron Miller says:
July 4, 2017 at 10:42 am
John Oliver’s a comedian, not an anchor, and I’d wish people would stop taking him so seriously, cause it’s obvious he’s an attention whore!
Veronica Serrano Padilla says:
July 3, 2017 at 3:33 pm
LMAO… if you haven’t taken the time to actually watch this video, you definitely need to. It show the ridiculousness of Sinclair and their two bozo political commentators – and does it using their own words. Proving real life sometimes is much, much stranger than fiction!
Andrea Rader says:
July 3, 2017 at 4:25 pm
Ah, John Oliver, mad prophet of the airwaves. He wants the Sinclair-Tribune deal stopped now! The only things missing are the seizure and the fainting.
John Murray says:
July 4, 2017 at 10:25 am
You have meddled with the primary forces of nature! And yooou will atone! : )
Teri Keene says:
July 3, 2017 at 4:45 pm
Great video. “Terrorism Alert Desk”? Their news operations deserve to made fun of.
Ellen Samrock says:
July 3, 2017 at 8:22 pm
It’s bad enough when those two yo-yos on “The Morning Joe” criticize conservatives but when toffee-nosed British twits like John Oliver do it, it’s beyond insufferable. I say send him back home crying into the arms of Jeremy Corbyn.