One month ago today, LouisianaVoice ran a STORY about a major screw-up by a Shreveport television station that read more like the script for a possible sequel to Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. That movie was a hilarious spoof of local television news departments and their so-called reporters.
Not so hilarious was the decision by Nexstar Media Group, Sinclair Broadcast Group, ABC Network, Disney and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to pull the Jimmy Kimmel Show (“suspended indefinitely” was the term actually used) following Kimmel’s observation Monday that the Trump administration has attempted to capitalize on Kirk’s shooting by painting shooter Tyler Robinson as part of the “radical left” that is spewing hate and violence. The fact that both Sinclair and Nexstar have major transactions pending before the FCC couldn’t be a factor, could it? Nah, of course not; that would be political extortion.
Of course, when Jamie Allen, host of The Allen Report on Sinclair affiliate KDNL in St. Louis said in 2018 that he was “getting ready to ram a hot poker up [then 17-year-old Parkland shooting survivor-turned-gun control spokesman] David Hogg’s ass,” we heard not a peep from the FCC, Sinclair or the Trump administration.
But today, on his way back from his visit to London, Trump suggested that networks that give him bad publicity or criticize him should “maybe” have their licenses revoked, ignoring or ignorant of the fact that the FCC regulates only local TV stations, not networks. But then, ignorance is nothing new to Trump whose signed an executive order in the earliest days of his second administration proclaiming his undying devotion to freedom of speech.
Of course, his idea of free speech is “free for me, but not for thee.”
He should be familiar with McCarthyism. Ol’ Tail Gunner Joe McCartthy who tossed around charges of communism the way Trump does hoax and witch hunt, had as his legal counsel an attorney named Roy Cohn. Roy Cohn also served as DONALD TRUMP’S legal counsel in the 1970s and 1980s.
And McCarthyism is what the Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel firings seem to bring to mind. In fact, Christopher Anders, director of the Democracy and Technology Division of the ALCU said just that. “This is beyond McCarthyism. Trump officials are repeatedly abusing their power to stop ideas they don’t like, deciding who can speak, write and even joke.” He called it a “grave threat to our First Amendment freedoms.”
But let’s take a closer look at both Sinclair and Nexstar.
Sinclair often requires its stations to air specific reports that are political skewed to the far right. A December 2016 the Washington Post conducted a review of Sinclair’s internal documents, as well as reviews of the newscasts and public affairs programming on the company’s stations, according to Wikipedia. It revealed that more broadcast time was given to favorable or neutral coverage of Trump’s campaign than to other candidates in the primary and general election campaigns of 2016. The coverage included distribution of reports favorable to Trump’s campaign or challenging to Clinton’s on a “must-run” basis, as well as Sinclair managers offering local reporters and anchors questions of “national importance” to use in interviews with candidates, a common company practice, according to Livingston, so that other Sinclair stations can share the content.
Now, Nexstar. What can we say? Going back to that LouisianaVoice story of exactly a month ago, we find a Nexstar TV station in Shreveport, KTAL, going after the news anchor of rival station KTBS without ever bothering to fact-check its own sources. That story has resulted in the filing of a libel lawsuit by the former KTBS anchor in a case he’s pretty certain to win, providing it ever actually goes to trial. The smart money is on an out-of-court confidential settlement.
Funny thing about that lawsuit: KTAL, as noted, is a Nexstar-owned station.
Seems to me they have enough on their plate to worry about without having to micro-manage a late-night comic.
But it does conjure up the question of whether or not Will Rogers could make it in today’s world.
Just for informational purposes, here is a list of Louisiana Sinclair-owned TV stations:
New Orleans Market
Shreveport Market
…and Nexstar’s Louisiana stations:
Baton Rouge market:
- WGMB (FOX)
- WVLA (NBC)
- WBRL-CD**
- KZUP-CD**
- Lafayette:
- KLFY (CBS)
- Monroe:
- KTVE (NBC)
- Alexandria:
- WNTZ (FOX)
- Shreveport:
- KTAL (NBC)
*(CBS/Warner Bros. merger)
**(Commodore TV System)
Because of Donald Trump’s paranoia and narcissist personality, we’re headed pell-mell to a network TV news world of Les Nessmans and Ted Baxters.
Louisiana Voice 
The last 48 hours of MAGA fascism is the last straw. For the rest of my life I will support any politician or policy with the goal of eradicating MAGA fascism and MAGA fascists. I don’t care if any of them can be redeemed. I don’t want to redeem any of them. I want them eradicated from the face of the earth. Starting now.