Here is my morning Internet routine: I check my mail, I look at Huffpost because it provides a quick overview of what their editors consider to be the most important stories of the day, next the NY Times, and then the Washington Post. I then look at other news and opinion websites including Daily Kos.
When I am done with national and international news since I live in Portland, Oregon I look at two of the three local television station websites, KOIN ands KGW. I don’t look at the Sinclair station because it is part of a pro-Trump conservative network (see VOX article) and I don’t want to give them any traffic. Today for this story I looked at the Sinclair story which gave me the topic for this story.
I was surprised to see a story about my liberal home state of Oregon. It had a catchy headline as the top of the page story on Huffpost.
The coverage of the story depended on the bias of the websites. Huffpost covered the story the best with straight reporting and interviews with people on each side. As they often do their headline and subtitle (“The GOP lawmakers are on the lam to sabotage a vote on a historic bill to combat climate change”) showed their liberal bias. There was no opining in the story itself.
To get an idea of what’s happening here’s an excerpt from the Huffpost story:
Oregon citizens and state troopers are keeping an eye peeled for AWOL Republican state senators who by being absent from their legislative jobs are stonewalling a vote on stricter pollution standards to battle climate change.
The State Police superintendent informed the Senate president of a “credible threat from militia groups coming to the Capitol,” read a text sent to senators Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported. “The superintendent strongly recommends that no one come to the Capitol.”
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I was curious about how this story was being covered locally so I checked the local television station websites.
KOIN had the story way down their main page. They do have a video.
On the KGW website it was the primary story: KGW also has a lengthy video
The Oregonian is a Portland print newspaper. They had the story on the top of their website, right.
And then there’s the far right, pro-Trump coverage of the Sincliar owned local television station
The Sinclair owned station (which I never click on since Sincliar is a very conservative national network that skews local news) it was the main story. The other local station’s reporting was objective.
Right-wing bias
KATU’s story was three paragraphs long. It was biased in favour of the GOP. It was sympathetic to the Republicans because it featured the smiling photo of the the Senate Minority Leader and the last paragraph was a blatant advertisement for the GOP GoFundMe page.
KATU even has a direct link to the GoFundMe page:
Here’s a disturbing recent NY Magazine story about Sincliar:
Pro-Trump Sinclair Media Poised for National Expansion by 2020
Excerpt:
Sinclair Broadcasting Group is the largest owner of local television news stations in the United States. It currently airs original programming on 193 channels throughout the country, enough to reach 39 percent of all American homes.
The company is also owned by a longtime Republican donor, and proudly operates as a platform for conservative propaganda. Sinclair formally promised to provide favorable coverage to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign(in exchange for access to the GOP nominee). Since the mogul’s election, the media giant has ordered all of its affiliates to air commentary that advances White House talking points, and coerced their own anchors into personally reporting that the mainstream news media is biased against the president.
Given the warm relations between Sinclair and the Trump administration, many observers expected the FCC to rubber-stamp the broadcaster’s proposed purchase of Tribune media last year — a merger that would have enabled Sinclair to broadcast local news to 72 percent of American households. But then Sinclair tried to subvert the lenient ownership rules that the administration had set for it, and, in a rare outburst scrupulous governance, FCC chair Ajit Pai flagged the issue, and the deal ended up falling through.
Please take the poll. It will help me when I consider writing stories which seem to be mostly of interest to Oregon residents.
I’m putting updates in the comments.