5 things to know about Sinclair Broadcast Group and that eerie video

KATIE BASHISTA

Opinions Editor

A video published by Deadspin earlier this month shows anchors from Sinclair Broadcast Group’s 193 TV stations reciting the exact same message in the exact same manner. As the nation’s biggest television company, this video has raised concern over propaganda and manipulation of the masses by the media. Here are some facts you should know about the situation and the company itself.

1. The man behind the viral video didn’t have any intention of it blowing up

Deadspin’s video director, Timothy Burke, posted the video March 31 which was the picked up by Allied Progress and went viral. In a Deadspin article, Burke says he got the idea to make this video after CNN announced this was going to happen. He says it fit his job description — making dumb videos. He says he thought of it as a “strange, spooky thing that happened” and made the video without any kind of angle as an activist. The chaos that ensued afterwards proved that not everyone saw it that way.

2. The message denounced fake news in a way that implied their competitors are fake news

The message itself isn’t inherently wrong. Fake news is bad and leads to an uninformed public and all journalists should strive for truth and accuracy. The way the message was delivered, however, implied that they’re the only media group that does it right. It seems their message was a way of assuring their viewers they tell nothing but the truth while others tend to sway one way over the other. This, coming from an openly conservative media outlet, is laughable.

3. Sinclair expects to buyout Tribune Media this year spect you?

When this deal closes, Sinclair will go from owning 193 stations to 220. The Wall Street Journal reported last week the Federal Communications Commission is holding off on closing the deal at the moment because Sinclair’s executive chairman, David Smith, wants to sell two of Tribune’s stations to third parties in order to comply with FCC laws limiting the number of stations a single company can control. However, the two third parties are people with close ties to Smith — one is his mother, Carolyn Smith and the other is Steven Fader, one of Smith’s business partners. This is a blatant attempt to curb the rules to maintain as much control as possible.

As a Black woman, I agree that it was disheartening seeing those tweets. Growing up your entire life being called a “roach” or a “darkie” from men who have the exact same skin tone as you is infuriating. This sexism, often dubbed “misogynoir,” is deeply ingrained in the Black community.

Even back in the heart of the Civil Rights Movement, sexism was incredibly prevalent. Civil rights leader Bernard Lee said Martin Luther King Jr. was sexist. “Martin … was absolutely a male chauvinist. He believed that the wife should stay home and take care of the babies while he’d be out there in the streets,” Lee stated in a biography on King’s life.

But one also cannot deny that Black women were essential to the Civil Rights Movement. Women like Rosa Parks and Septima Clark were trailblazers who made monumental efforts to ensure that I, and people like me, could live in the world we do today.

Now we’re in a similar predicament. The Black Lives Matter hashtag was created by three Black women and has now grown into a nationwide movement that dragged the brutal reality of violence against the Black community to the cultural foreront. And the irony of a man who disrespected the same group of women who are now rallying for justice over his corpse is astounding. Another take, specifically in an article by Essence, asked whether or not we must ask for all victims to be perfect in order to have support from the community. In my opinion, perfection is not the focus of the conversation. The conversation should be focused on calling out sexism committed specifically by Black men.

Stephon Clark did not deserve to die the way he did. No one does. As a Black woman, I will still say his name. But it’s time to start holding Black men accountable, because to win this battle, they need us too.