This month, Sinclair Broadcast Group has flooded a vast network of local news websites with misleading articles suggesting that President Biden is mentally unfit for office. The articles are based on specious social media posts by the Republican National Committee (RNC), which are then repackaged to resemble news reports. The thinly disguised political attacks are then syndicated to dozens of local news websites owned by Sinclair, where they are given the imprimatur of mainstream media brands, including NBC, ABC, and CBS.
Until 1997 there were fairly strict limits over who could own what broadcast stations in given markets. Then the neoliberal bug bit everyone’s ass in Congress and they passed a bipartisan bill that would let people own as many radio stations as they wanted, and way more TV stations than they should.
Suddenly every radio station became the same, and now most local news is owned by one batshit corporation.
Maybe trusting companies is a bad fucking idea.