President Obama was born in the United States. This was never in question until a certain reality TV star made it one, garnering media attention and forcing Obama to hold a humiliating press conference to display his birth certificate proving that he was born in Hawaii.
The first black President was also the first President to be forced to prove he was from here.
As we all know, that same reality star somehow became President, and has claimed that the same “media” that gave him a platform for his birther nonsense is now after him: “No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfair.”
There are many reasons why President Trump was victorious, but in light of the news that Sinclair Broadcasting recently forced all its anchors to read the same pro-Trump fear-mongering “fake news” propaganda statement on the air, let’s take a look at one big reason that has largely been overlooked. Sinclair—the nation’s largest local TV owner—and the Trump team reached an agreement that resulted in positive campaign coverage for Trump.
Sinclair—the nation’s largest local TV owner—and the Trump team reached an agreement that resulted in positive campaign coverage for Trump.
Considering that most American voters get their news from local TV stations, and that Sinclair owns stations in nearly all of the swing states, this turned out to be a Very Big Deal.
Trump’s son-in-law and top lieutenant, Jared Kushner, spilled the beans of the secret deal and said that, in return, Sinclair stations got more access to Trump.
Yet, after the election, team Trump gave Sinclair something exponentially more valuable than access to a presidential candidate.
Sinclair Broadcasting is not only the biggest owner of local television stations in the country, it is also the fastest growing—most of its stations have been acquired in just the last ten years.
A total of 39 percent of the nation’s households lie within the viewing area of a Sinclair station. And Sinclair plans to acquire forty-two more stations held by the Tribune Company, allowing it to reach 72 percent of U.S. households.
Under the Obama Administration, Sinclair was prohibited from exceeding serving a cap of 39 percent of households under a statute of the Telecommunications Act.
Last year, however, Trump’s Federal Communications Commission, under chairman Ajit Pai, brought back to life the technologically obsolete “UHF Discount” rule. The rule, from the pre-digital era when local stations were hard to tune-in to, allowed local stations to be counted as a fraction of the thirteen “normal” stations found on the “top dial.” Remember when TVs used to look like this?
Of course, today most people get all of the old UHF channels as easily as “top dial” channels, making Trump’s resurrection of the old rule not only silly but clearly in violation of both the letter and spirit of the Telecommunications Act. Free Pass and other activist groups are currently suing to prevent the UHF “loophole” and the Sinclair-Tribune purchase from going further, but with corporate masseuse Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, don’t hold your breath.
And while Trump is green-lighting Sinclair, he’s been blocking AT&T’s purchase of CNN’s parent company, Time Warner, saying, “it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.”
That would just happen to be the same CNN that Trump repeatedly labels as “fake news,” the same sentiments that Sinclair just happened to echo in their recent collective Trump incantation.
In any business, such naked corruption is troubling, but in the press it erodes the freedom of press protections in the First Amendment. As another “fake news” media outlet that Trump is also threatening with regulatory strife puts it, “democracy dies in darkness.”
Right now, friends, a little orange hand is reaching out toward that dimmer switch.
Jud Lounsbury is a political writer based in Madison, Wisconsin and a frequent contributor to The Progressive. He also blogs at uppitywis.org and you can find him on Twitter @judlounsbury.