Sinclair Broadcast Group, the nation's largest TV broadcaster, is playing defense after Deadspin unleashed a video over the weekend showing anchors at its 170-plus local news stations reading the exact same warning about the "troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news stories plaguing our country," the "sharing of biased and false news" and "fake stories" on social media, and the "members of the media [who] use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control exactly what people think," which "is extremely dangerous to our democracy."
The video went viral in part because of Sinclair's conservative bent and pending expansion, and because having dozens of news anchors reading the same warning about bias and "fake" news, localized and not mentioning that it came from corporate headquarters, was a little creepy. On Monday, Sinclair's vice president of news, Scott Livingston, defended his "corporate news journalistic responsibility promotional campaign" in both an internal memo obtained by CNN and public statements.
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