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Comment by Consultant32452 | Hacker News Reader

Not the person you're replying to, but I also have a hard time seeing the problem. Or rather, I can see the problem, but this is how I would've expected news to have been done for decades. I grew up when there was only 4 TV channels and no internet. I would have assumed CBS (or its parent) would have controlled all the CBS affiliates in this way in the 80s. NBC would do the same, etc.

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Actually, no, back in that day long ago, in a world far away, the local broadcaster wasn't 'owned' by the big three. The local broadcaster was independent, and they got their feed for first run programming, and the "world news" from their affiliation (more akin to the local purchasing the rights to broadcast) with one of the big three majors.

There used to be actual regulations on the books that prevented this type of consolidation from happening. Then, sometime circa. the 1980's, those laws were tossed out, leading to today where one single corporate parent controls nearly 200 local broadcasters in a very direct way.

It's one (sinclair) pretending to be many (local news stations).

Standard advice is check multiple sources. This pretends to be "multiple sources" when really it's just one.

Sinclair is effectively and echo chamber on TV. Web standards, don't like it, navigate else where. TV Standards, change the channel, get the same stuff. See how that is much more dangerous?

But this is the way it's been as far back as I can remember. You might think reading your local news is an independent source, but it's often mostly a copy/pasta from Reuters or simply reporting that another news company said something. I never believed that my local "Action 9 News" caster was actually doing any journalism. Maybe for local stories, but for anything national they were just regurgitating the company line.

Newspapers pay Reuters for access to their stories because Reuters has pretty good writing on offer for less than it would cost the paper to do the work itself. They can choose what stories they want to put their name on, and they are even free to modify a story from Reuters if they want to. Reuters doesn't tell the newspapers want to print. It's not even a little bit similar to what people are talking about here.

Then I think the discussion should reflect that. So what has changed is that now there's apparently an explicit rule that news stations must continue to follow the behavior they've been exhibiting for decades. Also, there's a little more structure to it now.

No? A corporation forcing news outlets to issue editorial statements (and without disclosure) isn't remotely the same thing as a newspaper voluntarily paying Reuters for access to its reporting. It's like the difference between buying an apple at the farmer's market and having somebody pour bleach in your eyes. There's a level of abstraction where you could describe those two things in similar terms ("oh, you're just having a substance enter your body"), but they are not at all the same in any meaningful way.

I understand what you're saying, I'm just more cynical about old media than you are. Technically old media in the 80s could have theoretically expressed unique opinions that didn't toe the company line of the wealthy establishment, they just coincidentally never did. Now many of them are owned by the same company and use the same language.

I guess you're completely ignorant of the Fairness Doctrine, then.

A link, in case anyone is lazy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine

"this way" is not news reporting, it's propaganda.

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