Hot Air

The actual substance of Mark Hyman’s latest editorial is almost beside the point.  What stands out is the degree to which it shows the price audiences pay for the Sinclairization of their local news.

Hyman’s thesis is that two particular and obscure bits of legislation are the key to rebuilding Puerto Rico.  The evidence of this is not forthcoming, partly because there’s not a lot out there. The two regulations, as with most things regarding Puerto Rico, were put in place primarily out of economic concerns for the continental United States, not the people of Puerto Rico.  The effects of permanently getting rid of the Jones Act are unclear, and reinstating Section 936 (tax breaks for companies who do business in Puerto Rico) is actually opposed by some in Puerto Rico, who feel that it allows the island’s resources to be exploited by outsiders.

It’s nice that Hyman is bringing up Puerto Rico at all, although it would be better if he were advocating more meaningful steps that directly assisted the people themselves, such as (oh, I don’t know) treating the humanitarian crisis there in a way commensurate with similar catastrophes in the United states.  Or, for that matter, suggesting that it would be nice to have a president who understood that Puerto Ricans were, in fact, Americans.

But the larger issue is that roughly two minutes of a Sinclair “local” news broadcast could be taken up by a discussion of arcane shipping law.  Why?  Because Sinclair feels this is more important (both politically and economically) than allowing truly local voices to be heard. 

This wouldn’t mean ignoring issues like Puerto Rico.  Have a segment on local folks who have gone to Puerto Rico to help.  Talk about concrete ways viewers might be able to assist through donations.  Heck, have a segment on arcane shipping laws, but have it be something that is discussed because the journalistic voices of that community feel it’s relevant and of interest to them.

The colonization and exploitation of the public space that is local news airwaves by Sinclair impoverishes our discourse.  By giving empty corporate suits the luxury of bloviating about their pet hobby horses, the voices and views of their audience go unheeded.

Attempting to Take the Moral High Ground Leaves Sinclair in the Gutter

A recent commentary in which Sinclair’s Mark Hyman takes other journalists to task for ethical failings goes about as well as one might expect it to, given what viewers have long seen from Hyman himself.

The subject is an article in Politico from many months ago that quoted Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner as saying that the Trump campaign had struck a deal with Sinclair for interviews with the candidate.

(That Hyman is rehashing news from more than half a year ago is odd, although it’s at least possible it might have to do with the fact that between the recent John Oliver piece on Sinclair and rising objections to Sinclair’s attempt to purchase yet more TV stations—some even coming from fellow conservative media outlets—the company is feeling under siege.)

Hyman claims Politico—and several other news outlets that picked up the story—misrepresented the deal. The problem is that Hyman himself mischaracterizes the Politico piece, implying that it ignored information that “any fresh-faced reporter” could have found for political purposes.

Specifically, he suggests that the Politico piece suggested Sinclair made a deal with only the Trump campaign and did not offer the same deal to the Clinton campaign. He cites a retraction/apology from a blog written by a member of the Society for Professional Journalists who had based an earlier post on the Politico piece as outside, confirming evidence of malfeasance. 

Mark and Ajit, Sitting in a Tree . . . .

In our previous post, we noted that Mark Hyman recently used a “bait and switch” argumentative tactic, praising the Trump administration’s official ending of obsolete Y2K regulations as a way of implying the wisdom of Trump in going after all manner of consumer protections.

Hyman’s recent commentary on internet privacy is a logical follow up on this. In it, he argues that rules protecting consumer privacy and confidentiality regarding their online information were rightfully quashed by the Trump administration since they were unnecessary.

Key to his argument was that these protections were unfair because they applied only to telecommunications companies (i.e. internet providers) but didn’t apply to online services such as Google and Facebook. The federal agency charged with enforcing these new rules was the FCC, which, Hyman charged, was “playing favorites.”

Sinclair Broadcasting vs. John Oliver: "This F&%#-ing Guy"

John Oliver’s piece on Sinclair was a thing of beauty, and you owe it to yourself to see it. And he certainly doesn’t need any help defending himself, particularly given the impotence of Hyman’s attempted rebuttal (apparently Sinclair folks haven’t gotten the memo not to respond to someone who is smarter and funnier than you—it never ends well).

What is worth noting, however, is how Hyman manages to undercut his own points.

Hyman frames his response by advising us that we shouldn’t take anything John Oliver says seriously, and then goes on to do precisely that, with the twist being that he misreports (or misunderstands) the content of Oliver’s argument.

Hyman says “Oliver wanted his viewers to be horrified at Sinclair’s size” (but, weren’t we told Oliver was just about being funny? Ah, details.). The rebuttal to this is that Oliver works for HBO, which is owned by Time Warner, which is much bigger than Sinclair Broadcasting.