[chris]

Earlier this month, CNN’s Brian Stelter broke the news that Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner or operator of nearly 200 television stations in the U.S., would be forcing its news anchors to record a promo about “the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country.” The script, which parrots Donald Trump’s oft-declarations of developments negative to his presidency as “fake news,” brought upheaval to newsrooms already dismayed with Sinclair’s consistent interference to bring right-wing propaganda to local television broadcasts.

Here is the script:

Hi, I’m(A) ____________, and I’m (B) _________________…

(B) Our greatest responsibility is to serve our Northwest communities. We are extremely proud of the quality, balanced journalism that KOMO News produces.

(A) But we’re concerned about the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country. The sharing of biased and false news has become all too common on social media.

(B) More alarming, some media outlets publish these same fake stories… stories that just aren’t true, without checking facts first.

(A) Unfortunately, some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control ‘exactly what people think’…This is extremely dangerous to a democracy.

(B) At KOMO it’s our responsibility to pursue and report the truth. We understand Truth is neither politically ‘left nor right.’ Our commitment to factual reporting is the foundation of our credibility, now more than ever.

(A) But we are human and sometimes our reporting might fall short. If you believe our coverage is unfair please reach out to us by going to KOMOnews.com and clicking on CONTENT CONCERNS. We value your comments. We will respond back to you.

(B) We work very hard to seek the truth and strive to be fair, balanced and factual… We consider it our honor, our privilege to responsibly deliver the news every day.

(A) Thank you for watching and we appreciate your feedback.

https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/ho...anc-1824233490

[Coreym07]

We are a constitutional republic....

[Stevieaitch]

Alex jones is on to something

[spudigitti]

Go on Chris

[Oswald2001]

You said..."Brian Stelter"...and "CNN"...:fac epalm

[Stevieaitch]

Hogg what a cunt

[jcvdam1990]

theres a larger picture here. id rather just stay in my bubble w my manicured lawn. =(

[Steve]

Originally Posted by Stevieaitch ↗

Alex jones is on to something

Alex Jones should keep his mouth shut, him and his bullshit show INFOBORES are not news of any kind.

[SLAPAPPY]

You can trust the news to be as accurate as the weather forecast is on it's most inaccurate day!

[Kanda444]

Originally Posted by chris ↗

Here is the script:


https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/ho...anc-1824233490

did you know that a lot of AP sources do that as well? I spent time at a local news station for a class project in school and they showed me the AP wire, which give short synopses of the stories...but they are also given a format like that to work with (it was an outline, sort of, but with scripted lines you could choose from if you wanted to) where they can take the story and change the verbiage just a bit to make it their own.

they had me work on a story to be put on the evening news, which i did. the story was about a semi-local car accident (in the state but not in the city) but they didnt have any footage and none of their crew was able to cover the story, so they took me to their stock footage and showed me how to find images that looked like they were from the story. from there, i took somebody else's work (which ever small town reporter that was actually there wrote. they didnt have any pictures) and i put it into their outline, then i edited together video of car crashes with mid day light and with rainy weather that looked sort of like that part of the state...then it got put on the news as if it was them at the scene reporting. it didnt say 'stock footage' on the screen. it was framed to look like they were there first hand. thats what i was told to do.

that was just the tip of the iceberg. i could go on and on about the bullshit i saw there and how dishonest they were. they were pretty open to me about their fabrication of stories and that their job wasnt to present facts...it was to get views and the best way to do that was to be masterful story tellers.

they had real, important stories that people did real investigative work on....ones that would have mattered to our community...and they killed them because it wasnt as eye catching as the stories they wanted to lead with and it wasnt and heartwarming as the stories they wanted to end with.