Will Sinclair squeeze the “local” out of local news?

[George_S]

POSTED ON OCTOBER 16, 2003:

Less point
Will Sinclair squeeze the “local” out of local news?

By Dusty Rhodes

If you thought you were hearing things when our beloved local news anchor announced a "one-on-one interview" with President George W. Bush, well, obviously, you weren't. This week, Springfield got a taste of NewsCentral, the "revolutionary news model" created by Sinclair Broadcasting Group, which bought WICS-TV Channel 20 about four years ago.

Proudly promoting itself as "the nation's largest commercial television broadcasting company not owned by a network," SBG was among a handful of "regional broadcasters" invited to privately interview Bush. According to a story in the Washington Post, Bush sat for five eight-minute interviews with broadcasters who don't regularly cover the White House in an effort to take his message directly to the American people, thereby avoiding the cynical, "analytical" filter of the national media. The regional interviews came two days after Gannett News Service revealed that letters purportedly written by American soldiers in Iraq and published in letter-to-the-editor sections of newspapers across the country were actually not written by the soldiers. One soldier didn't even know the letter existed, Gannett reported.

More:

http://www.illinoistimes.com/gbase/Gyrosite/PrintFriendly?oid=oid%3A2595

So there was a previous and more personal connection between SBG and Bush back in '03.

[colonel odis]

1. they'll only do it if people watch.

and support their advertisers.

i wrote emails to 7 sinclair advertisers, local and national, saying i won't spend money with them as long as they financially support sinclair and wztv, the nashville affiliate.

not that they're shaking in their boots, but i sure feel better. though i was probably going to buy a couch from one of them this week.