Regulators Are Rewarding Sinclair Broadcasting For Lobotomizing Local Broadcast News

Despite oodles of regulatory favors and millions of dollars in spectrum sales, Sinclair Broadcasting is shuttering what passes for local news" in another five markets, continuing a wave of layoffs making an already bad problem worse.

You might recall that Sinclair's long been under fire for heavily consolidating a very broken local news sector, often replacing real local reporting with what many critics say is little more than glorified right wing propaganda. Last week, the company announced it would be completely shuttering its local reporting offices in Ohio, Oregon, Nebraska, Florida and Iowa amidst additional layoffs.

Instead of real local news, those stations will broadcast Sinclair's rightward lurching national feed:

Instead of regularly scheduled local news, starting May 15 the stations will air The National Desk (TND), programming that, according to a Sinclair statement, provides real-time national and regional news from Sinclair's television stations across the U.S.

We've noted how the death of local newspapers and mindless consolidation have created massive news deserts" where locals routinely see little in the way of actual reporting on issues that matter. The end result is a public that's routinely less informed and more divided, a measurable impact on election outcomes, and an increase in corruption given the lack of any skilled reporters covering local politicians.

Whereas many assumed the internet" would rush in to fill the vacuum, companies generally don't find local news profitable enough to bother. As a result, not only are locals now less informed, but into that vacuum has flooded all manner of political propagandists and bullshit artists keen on exploiting a dearth of real journalism to even further misinform the voting public. If you hadn't noticed, it's working.

Consumer groups like Free Press are quick to note that this is all occurring while state and federal legislators push bills like the California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA) and the federal Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), which profess to be saving journalism," but would simply drive a major transfer of wealth from tech companies to bad actors like Sinclair:

That these bills have any momentum is largely due to the powerful Big Media lobby pushing them. This includes lobbyists working on behalf of Sinclair as well as Gannett Co. and predatory hedge fund Alden Global Capital, which have also cut local newsrooms to the bone even as they've continued to buy back stocks, go deeper into debt to acquire more local outlets, and use other financial gimmicks to enrich their owners, executives and shareholders.

There's no shortage of blame to be levied at federal regulators at the FCC, as well. The agency's been intentionally mired in dysfunction without a voting majority after the coordinated lobbying attack on media and telecom reformer Gigi Sohn. You'll recall that major broadcasting companies like Fox played a big role seeding what's left of our press with all manner of lies about Sohn's record.

It worked: efforts to combat telecom monopolization or protect diversity and localism in local news have both been intentional casualties of this lobbying war. And this failure has generally been obscured from public view courtesy of a fairly myopic (albeit often warranted) policy fixation on Big Tech."

Instead of actually saving local news and promoting localism and diversity, groups like Free Press say federal policymakers have become obstinate contributors to the decline of local news. Instead of focusing regulatory efforts on politically difficult things like antitrust reform or media/telecom monopoly busting, they've embraced a simulacrum of real policy rewarding some of the worst actors in the space.