[Covzire]

Right wing media has pointed out the same 'creepy talking point synchronicity' happening in the larger mainstream media for many years. Just like with Cambridge Analytica, certain behavior is only raised by the media as a scandal when amateurs try to the same thing the big boys have been doing for years/decades.

[mabbo]

Really? Which news outlets had dozens of news anchors read, word for word, the same script that was given to them by their owners and played as if it was a local independent news story?

It's unprecedented. It's not about which politics the story supports, it's about the media and public being manipulated. Ajit Pai's response shows he either doesn't understand that or wants everyone else to think it's about something else.

[delbel]

this isn't exactly new. There's videos from Conan showing the same thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLXQ0qbq6jY

In fact it was a regular segment on his show. This was 10 years ago. Further more, during the second Iraq War local new stations owned by Sinclair aired pro war talking points (even NPR read them), word by word.

If you go back to Bill Clinton, there's a video of him doing this and saying how great it is. This was satellite feed that was broadcasted to remote stations, omebody was able to record the feeds and hear all the conversations. It was basically scripted at the local news level.

There's other evidence to but I don't want to get into it on this site, its overwelming and dark. If we can get just one victory against this crap I'll take it.

[Covzire]

Remember Journolist[0]? The views of the major news stations and papers have been heavily aligned in one direction for several decades now. Journolist was hard evidence that they colluded in delivering talking points not just among one brand but multiple brands at the same time. Like I said, Sinclair are amatuers to what has, and we have to assume is, going on with most other outlets.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList

[s73v3r_]

You're confusing the issue. The issue here isn't a bunch of stations being aligned; the issue is the parent company mandating a word-for-word reading of a script that furthers the parent company's interest.

[ceejayoz]

> Remember Journolist?

Journolist had 400 journalists on it.

Sinclair owns 233 entire stations.

[krastanov]

All media companies say "we are the best media source", there is nothing weird with that.

It is questionable when a monopoly of unheard of before size is saying "most other media sources are dangerous for our democracy", especially when it involves gaslighting.