Television station license challenges: Fox, Sinclair

 For a few years I suggested that Fox terrestrial broadcast licenses be challenged, based on the idea that the way they run Fox cable assets are counter to the public interest, making them unworthy of the privilege of using the public airwaves ("Australian Broadcasting Corporation documentary on the Murdoch media empire and Trump".).  Fox cable television programming is severely unbalanced ("Why a Fox News pundit may not have heard bad news about Trump," Washington Post).

Finally, the license in Philadelphia is being challenged ("Fox Television station license being challenged in Philadelphia, on character grounds").  I attempted a submission myself, but the docket for FCC comments is pretty unwieldly and I never finished.

Sinclair Television ("Sinclair’s recipe for TV news: Crime, homelessness, illegal drugs," Washington Post) licenses should be similarly challenged.  From the article:

Every year, local television news stations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting conduct short surveys among viewers to help guide the year’s coverage. A key question in each poll, according to David Smith, the company’s executive chairman: “What are you most afraid of?”

... The answers are evident in Sinclair’s programming. Crime, homelessness, illegal drug use, failing schools and other societal ills have long been core elements of local TV news coverage. But on Sinclair’s growing nationwide roster of stations, the editorial focus reflects Smith’s conservative views and plays on its audience’s fears that America’s cities are falling apart, according to media observers, Smith associates, and current and former staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal company matters. 

... Sinclair’s local network of 185 stations across the country makes it an influential player in shaping the views of millions of Americans, especially at a time when local newspapers are rapidly being gutted — or closed altogether. 

As Sinclair increasingly fills the void, it offers its viewers a perspective that aligns with Trump’s oft-stated opinion that America’s cities, especially those run by Democratic politicians, are dangerous and dysfunctional. “Sinclair stations deliver messages that appeal to older, White, suburban audiences, and they play up crime stories in a way that is disproportionate to their statistical presence,” said Anne Nelson, a journalist and author of “Shadow Network: Media, Money and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right.” 

All of it is fearmongering and feeds into a racialized view of cities.” Sinclair’s large network of local stations tends to cover societal problems in similar ways, experts say. A 2019 study by researchers at Stanford and Emory universities showed that a Sinclair acquisition of local stations resulted in “substantial increases in coverage of national politics at the expense of local politics” and “a significant rightward shift in the ideological slant of coverage.” 

Nelson, who has spent decades studying conservative media and political propaganda, said that local TV news reports traditionally cover local crime stories, but Sinclair’s programming does it “more than usual, and with a particular message.” She said that the lack of local papers has changed the role of local TV news. 

Sinclair’s large network of local stations tends to cover societal problems in similar ways, experts say. A 2019 study by researchers at Stanford and Emory universities showed that a Sinclair acquisition of local stations resulted in “substantial increases in coverage of national politics at the expense of local politics” and “a significant rightward shift in the ideological slant of coverage.”

-- "Local News and National Politics," American Political Science Review