Current Events > Reporter fired for not following media agenda

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https://www.buzzfeed.com/stevenperlberg/sinclair-climate-change?utm_term=.efp9D1Vnz#.lsPP9JO84

Sinclair Broadcast Group executives reprimanded and ultimately ousted a local news reporter who refused to seed doubt about man-made climate change and balance her stories in a more conservative direction.

Her account, detailed in company documents she provided to BuzzFeed News, offers a glimpse at the inner workings of a media giant that has sought to both ingratiate itself to President Donald Trump and cast itself as an apolitical local news provider a position the documents undermine.

In one 2015 instance, the former news director of WSET-TV in Lynchburg, Virginia, Len Stevens, criticized reporter Suri Crowe because she clearly laid out the argument that human activities cause global warming, but had nothing from the side that questions the science behind such claims and points to more natural causes for such warming.

In recent months, Sinclair has garnered intense national attention for forcing stations across the country to carry pro-Trump, must-run segments and instructing anchors to read statements touting conservative talking points. Sinclair, which owns local TV stations affiliated with name-brand networks like Fox or ABC, has defended the segments and noted they are a small part of its stations overall coverage but Crowes experience as a general assignment reporter demonstrates how the parent companys ideology can permeate throughout local news reporting.

She faced discipline for social media posts and restrictions in reporting on guns, white nationalism, and Liberty University, she said. Company documents do criticize some of her work as unfair and her behavior as unprofessional at times. Overall, the documents provide an unusually close look at one reporters experience working for a Sinclair station, and how the smallest details mattered and were recorded.

Crowe told BuzzFeed News that before the October 2015 climate change segment aired, she was ordered by Stevens to include Donald Trumps opinion on the matter. When I instructed you to balance the story, by including some of [the] other argument, you insisted there was no need to add such balance to the story, he wrote in her Jan. 22, 2016, performance review.

A veteran reporter who has worked at news stations in Texas and Virginia, Crowe said she viewed the story as environmental not two-sided or political. I was always covering the flu. I dont remember a time when for balance I went out to a group of 20 people who are nut jobs that say flu shots kill, she told BuzzFeed News. The scientific consensus is that climate change is real and humans are largely to blame, but Crowe ultimately read the updated, balanced script on air. That was the moment where I realized how things were going to go there, she said.

The management team felt the story was one-sided indicating that human activity is to blame for global warming period, said Stevens, who now works in the communications department at Liberty University, in an emailed statement to BuzzFeed News. I understand most scientists agree with that assessment. I, myself, feel that human activity at least plays a role, but our opinions really shouldnt matter. We were there to deliver news, not opinion. And there is NOT 100% agreement on this issue, even among the scientific community.

Crowe was, in retrospect, struck that Trumps thoughts were included before he was even his partys nominee, but Stevens defended the decision. It was simply a statement in the headlines at that time that provided some balance, some reference to the other side of the argument. That side does exist, he said. The same would hold true for any hot button issue Gun Control, Abortion, the Death Penalty, etc.

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This is extremely dangerous to our constitutional republic
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hockeybub89 posted...

This is extremely dangerous to our constitutional republic

What constitutional republic.
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Spooking posted...

Why is anybody shocked that you will get fired if you disobey your superiors?

Maybe our media shouldn't be infested by superiors who want us to hear lies about whether or not we're destroying the environment.

silentwing26x posted...

Spooking posted...

Why is anybody shocked that you will get fired if you disobey your superiors?

Maybe our media shouldn't be infested by superiors who want us to hear lies about whether or not we're destroying the environment.

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silentwing26x posted...

Spooking posted...

Why is anybody shocked that you will get fired if you disobey your superiors?

Maybe our media shouldn't be infested by superiors who want us to hear lies about whether or not we're destroying the environment.

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silentwing26x posted...

Maybe our media shouldn't be infested by superiors who want us to hear lies about whether or not we're destroying the environment.

I don't think it's an issue if two sides of an argument are presented
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where is @COVxy to flood the thread about "scapegoats"
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silentwing26x posted...

Spooking posted...

Why is anybody shocked that you will get fired if you disobey your superiors?

Maybe our media shouldn't be infested by superiors who want us to hear lies about whether or not we're destroying the environment.

Where do lies come into this? I just see them not reporting "the other side's point of view".
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Antifar posted...

Sinclair Broadcast Group executives reprimanded and ultimately ousted a local news reporter who refused to seed doubt about man-made climate change and balance her stories in a more conservative direction.

Of course it's Sinclair. Shit company wants to brainwash all of America with its propaganda

So a guy didn't do his job and was fired for it?

Well no shit sherlock.
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UnfairRepresent posted...

So a guy didn't do his job and was fired for it?

Well no shit sherlock.

Government propaganda should not be a job. Is this North Korea?
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sellerdore posted...

silentwing26x posted...

Maybe our media shouldn't be infested by superiors who want us to hear lies about whether or not we're destroying the environment.

I don't think it's an issue if two sides of an argument are presented

There is no other side to this argument. We as a species need to move towards more sustainable energy creation and delivery methods. The "two sides" is just code for "it's okay to obfuscate about the state of the environment."

So where's all those folks that complain about the 'libural' media?

Do they have a problem with this?
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sellerdore posted...

silentwing26x posted...

Maybe our media shouldn't be infested by superiors who want us to hear lies about whether or not we're destroying the environment.

I don't think it's an issue if two sides of an argument are presented

One side is supported by evidence, the other side is supported by gobbledy-guuk and feelings. Appealing to the middle position is a fallacy when one side has nothing to support it.
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What happened to the free press?
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Every time someone talks shit about ISIS, they should have someone praising them on the news!

You know, for balance!!!
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silentwing26x posted...

sellerdore posted...

silentwing26x posted...

Maybe our media shouldn't be infested by superiors who want us to hear lies about whether or not we're destroying the environment.

I don't think it's an issue if two sides of an argument are presented

There is no other side to this argument. We as a species need to move towards more sustainable energy creation and delivery methods. The "two sides" is just code for "it's okay to obfuscate about the state of the environment."

I agree with Proudclad tbh. At the end of the day, we know there are environmental issues. We need to fix them regardless of where the blame is. That should be a nonpartisan goal.
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PowerMang posted...

So where's all those folks that complain about the 'libural' media?

Do they have a problem with this?

No, just like the folks that complain about this have no complaints about the liberal controlled media.

What a shocker.

PowerMang posted...

So where's all those folks that complain about the 'libural' media?

Do they have a problem with this?

The media is still overwhelmingly liberal, this doesn't change that. There's disgusting mind-control bull shit happening in media in general.

Spooking posted...

CNN, MSNBC, HuffPost, Salon, BuzzFeed, ect... have all been refusing to report the other side since forever, and now that a right-leaning company does it, the world is aghast. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I'm looking forward to seeing this guy get increasingly more desperate over the course of the topic
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PowerMang posted...

So where's all those folks that complain about the 'libural' media?

Do they have a problem with this?

Spooking is one of those, as you can see, he has no issues when it's beneficial to his cult leader.
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Spooking posted...

CNN, MSNBC, HuffPost, Salon, BuzzFeed, ect... have all been refusing to report the other side since forever, and now that a right-leaning company does it, the world is aghast. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

We need more YEC and flat earth reports to balance science news out.
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