Sinclair’s sin

Sinclair’s stunt — echoing President Trump’s demagogic claim that the mainstream media can’t be trusted — is disturbing, for sure. It’s also hilarious, if you watch the montage created by the sports-news site Deadspin, in which multiple Sinclair local anchors earnestly perform the same dialogue like so many choir members warbling Handel’s "Hallelujah" chorus. But none of the critics, it seems to me, zeroed in on precisely what Sinclair did wrong.

Some critics see a powerful media chain (with 190 stations, more than any other in the country) throwing its weight around to advance its conservative agenda. Jane Hall, a professor at American University (and a former media critic for Fox News), assailed Sinclair for “forcing people in the news to read something that is a corporate piece of propaganda, in my opinion."

The deans of nine prominent journalism schools sent a letter denouncing Sinclair for eroding trust in the news media by conflating “two very different things — the work of professional journalists who produce real news and the false accounts on social media.”

False impression

Sinclair’s executive chairman, David Smith, dismisses as “nonsense” the notion that his company is imposing right-leaning views on its stations. Scott Livingston, Sinclair’s senior vice president for news, issued a disingenuous statement claiming to “find it curious that we would be attacked for asking our newspeople to remind their audiences that unsubstantiated stories exist on social media, which result in an ill-informed public with potentially dangerous consequences.”

So what exactly is wrong with Sinclair’s use of mandated speeches?

In a word: It’s dishonest.

Ordering your journalists to recite your words creates a false impression that your ideas are shared by others whose credibility exceeds your own. (If your employees are clearly identified as actors, that’s another story.)

Sinclair’s solution

If Smith or Livingston delivered such a speech before a camera and then required all their stations to broadcast it, I would have no problem with that. In such a case, viewers would understand whose opinions are being expressed. Last year, Sinclair tried that very approach. The problem, from Sinclair’s perspective, was that viewers didn’t trust Livingston or Smith as much as they trust their local anchors. So this year, the trusted anchors were ordered to endorse Livingston’s ideas and use his words. Which, as I said, is dishonest, whether or not you agree with those ideas.

If Sinclair’s local anchors had prefaced their mandated remarks with “Our corporate owners have ordered us to read the following statement,” I would have no problem with that. At least it’s honest. Ludicrous, maybe, but honest. At the end of the day, credibility is journalism's currency.

One simple rule

You may have seen Broad Street Review’s instructions for readers seeking to respond to our essays and reviews. They’re mercifully brief. Here’s the key point: “Our rule is simple: You can say whatever you like, as long as you identify yourself.” But that rule is too simple, apparently, for the owners of a chain whose stations reach 7 out of 10 U.S. homes but are apparently unwilling to speak up for themselves.

The great Hebrew sage Hillel the Elder was once asked by a scornful heathen to summarize Jewish philosophy while standing on one foot. Hillel (standing on one foot, presumably) replied: “That which is hateful to thee, do not unto others. That is the whole law; all the rest is commentary.” If Donald Trump or his scornful Sinclair acolytes asked me to summarize the essence of journalism while standing on one foot, I would give them a similarly uncluttered reply: “Be honest. All the rest is commentary.”