April 2, 2018

John Oliver Tears Into Sinclair Broadcasting, the Trump-Loving Local News Giant

Over the weekend, a video featuring dozens of local news reporters reciting the same, “fake news”-bashing script went viral, with many comparing the chilling supercut to something of a hostage video. The clip demonstrated the rise of Sinclair Broadcasting—the media giant few may know by name but have likely encountered—and the company’s conservative takeover of local news outlets.

On Sunday, John Oliver went further to unpack some of the alarming ways the Trump-friendly media group twists viewers’ trust in their local news reporters to parrot highly misleading, right-wing messaging. That content can range from mandatory “Terrorism Alert Desks” to deceptive features on the “deep state.”

The HBO host also slammed the “fake news” script: “When you see just how many local stations were forced to read it and you watch them together, as many have been doing online in the last couple of days, you begin to realize the true effect of Sinclair’s reach and power.”

For more, don’t miss Mother Jones‘ deep-dive investigation into Sinclair and its ties to the Trump administration, including the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=241&v=kCkuuzDOKwE

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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