A Journalist's Defense of the Sinclair Statement

Guest: Robert Walz, Associate Teaching Professor of Journalism, Brigham Young University When you watch your favorite local TV news, you probably don’t realize that station has a corporate owner somewhere. A company called Sinclair Broadcast Group is the largest – it owns 190 stations across the country and it’s been taking a lot of heat recently for requiring local TV news hosts at all of its stations to read a message on-the-air about a “troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country.” Across the media landscape, journalists have condemned the move by Sinclair, saying it’s a thinly veiled attack on mainstream news outlets and an endorsement of President Trump’s constant effort to discredit reporting he disagrees with. President Trump has, in fact, praised Sinclair on Twitter, contrasting it with the “Fakers at CNN, NBC, ABC & CBS.” We talk to a journalist who defends the move by Sinclair.