Sheelah Kolhatkar on the Growth of Sinclair’s Conservative Media Empire
Sheelah Kolhatkar's latest in the print edition of
The New Yorker explores how the company has achieved formidable reach by focussing on small markets where its TV stations can have a big influence.
❝ Sinclair is the largest owner of television stations in the United States, with a hundred and ninety-two stations in eighty-nine markets. It reaches thirty-nine per cent of American viewers. The company’s executive chairman, David D. Smith, is a conservative whose views combine a suspicion of government, an aversion to political correctness, and strong libertarian leanings. Smith, who is sixty-eight, has a thick neck, deep under-eye bags, and a head of silvery hair. He is an enthusiast of fine food and has owned farm-to-table restaurants in Harbor East, an upscale neighborhood in Baltimore. An ardent supporter of Donald Trump, he has not been shy about using his stations to advance his political ideology. Sinclair employees say that the company orders them to air biased political segments produced by the corporate news division, including editorials by the conservative commentator Mark Hyman, and that it feeds interviewers questions intended to favor Republicans. [NewYorker.com]
| SHEELAH KOLHATKAR is a staff writer & financial columnist at The New Yorker, & author of the NY Times Bestseller, Black Edge. Watch her discuss robots, automation and the future of jobs in America on MSNBC below, and learn more about booking Sheelah for your next event today. |
