As another presidential election season approaches, media consumers should keep an eye on what’s brewing in Baltimore.
Sinclair Inc. Executive Chairman David D. Smith has purchased The Baltimore Sun, the largest newspaper in Maryland. As the longtime leader of the notoriously right-wing local-TV news giant, again and again Smith has used his ample resources to advance a conservative agenda. Now his potential reach will only grow.
The details of the sale have not been made public, but Smith reportedly told staff he had paid “nine figures” for Baltimore Sun Media, which also includes Annapolis’ Capital Gazette and several other local publications. Although Smith made the purchase personally — and the paper will not be tied to Sinclair Inc. — the Sun serves the same community as Sinclair’s flagship news station WBFF-TV (Fox45), and expands Smith’s control of local news operations in Baltimore to include the area’s largest paper along with one of its top local news stations.
In 2017, Michael Copps, the George W. Bush-appointed former chairman of the FCC, called Sinclair ‘the most dangerous company most people have never heard of.’
In that initial staff meeting kicking off his tenure, Smith claimed to be apolitical. But Sinclair’s reputation and Smith’s own past statements and checkbook clearly tell a different story, as extensively detailed by the Sun’s longtime media critic David Zurawik. Smith has telegraphed his political views through regular involvement in Baltimore politics and personal donations to Republican candidates and right-wing causes. The Washington Post and The New York Times both found ample evidence that Smith and his brothers — also executives at Sinclair — have funneled substantial money to support Republican causes over the years.
Those donations, though, pale in comparison to Sinclair’s record. In 2017, Michael Copps, the George W. Bush-appointed former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, called Sinclair “the most dangerous company most people have never heard of.” The media empire got its start in Baltimore when Smith’s father purchased a local radio station and later launched TV news station WBFF in 1971. Under the younger Smith’s leadership, it became a conservative media giant. Sinclair now owns or operates more than 180 local television stations in 86 local media markets across the country.
Despite its rapid expansion, the company flew largely under the radar for years, even as its leadership used station airwaves to push right-wing politics. Sinclair stations ran attack ads against Barack Obama that other networks (including Fox News) declined “amid legal questions,” aired regular “Terrorism Alert Desk” segments filled with xenophobic fearmongering, provided favorable coverage of former President Donald Trump after purportedly striking a deal with his son-in-law, and even drew an FCC fine in 2007 for failing to disclose a conflict of interest with the second Bush administration.
The company unwittingly became a household name in 2018, thanks to its practice of regularly requiring its many stations to air corporate-produced segments filled with right-wing rhetoric and misinformation. This insidious “must-run” practice was hauntingly documented in a Deadspin video showing local reporters across the country reading from the same script decrying alleged “irresponsible, one-sided news stories plaguing our country” and “false news” (invoking the Trumpian term “fake news”).
Several research studies have shown that Sinclair ownership and programming can have a real-world impact on local news audiences. A 2018 Emory University study found that “stations bought by Sinclair reduce coverage of local politics, increase national coverage and move the ideological tone of coverage in a conservative direction.”
Subsequent research has found that Sinclair stations tend to exhibit “more cable news-style elements” compared to other local news stations, including citing “partisan sources,” and that “living in an area with a Sinclair-owned TV station … makes viewers less likely to vote for the Democratic nominee for president.”
Sinclair employees have repeatedly spoken out about how its corporate mandates have co-opted the credibility of local news outlets ‘to promote a political agenda.’
Taken all together, Smith’s media tour and first meeting with Sun staff this week should ring further alarm bells. In the days since the Sun acquisition was announced, Smith has repeatedly decried the media in Trumpian terms not unlike those of the Sinclair must-runs of 2018. In an interview with Sun business reporter Lorraine Mirabella, Smith “criticized ‘mainstream media’ in general for focusing on issues he said affect only a few people … adding that he finds it ‘curious that the mainstream media in this town often chooses not to cover things that affect everybody,’ in particular concerning problems and corruption in government.”
(In fact, the Sun won a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting in 2020 for its investigation into a book publishing scandal that ultimately led to the then-mayor’s resignation. Since the sale was announced, Sun reporters have answered Smith’s call by publishing two pieces on his large contributions to a ballot petition and a mayoral candidate.)
In a lengthy and reportedly tense meeting with Sun staff on Tuesday, Smith repeated this criticism — while also admitting he hadn’t read his own hometown paper “in 40 years,” except for “maybe four times” since he started the acquisition process. He also reportedly told staff he stood by a statement he made in 2018 calling print media “so left wing as to be meaningless dribble” and indicated he felt largely the same about the Sun. Instead, Smith suggested that Sun staff emulate the reporting of Fox45.
Reporting from nonprofit The Baltimore Banner and The Washington Post and a statement from the Baltimore Sun Guild all point to widespread concern in the newsroom as Smith takes the helm. They’re not alone: Sinclair employees have repeatedly spoken out about how its corporate mandates have co-opted the credibility of local news outlets “to promote a political agenda.”
In an ever-changing news environment, Americans reliably place a higher level of trust in their local outlets than in other sources, particularly for information they need to get involved in their community or to vote. Smith has shown a willingness and desire to exploit that trust for political gain. Will he take it even further in his own backyard?