Unhappy With Sinclair Broadcast Group's Editorial Policies? Here's What You Can Do

As many media outlets have been reporting this week, Sinclair Broadcast Group recently sent out a script to their television stations which mandated the station's local news anchors report on "the troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news stories plaguing our country." The story was first reported by CNN media reporter Brian Stelter and since his report was released, a number of other reporters have compiled video collections of the same pro-Trump, anti-media script being read by local news anchors across the country. 

This is just the latest move by a media company that has been under fire for imposing pro-conservative (and now pro-Trump) messages onto its local TV stations. From requiring stations to run editorials from former Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn to airing racially-charged "terrorism alerts," as Sinclair expands its reach it has also expanded the ways in which it editorially interferes with its local television stations. The company has shrugged off complaints in the past and Sinclair executives don't particularly seem concerned about the bad press they've received in recent weeks. If some banks are "too big to fail," then some large media companies believe they are "too large to care" about the complaints of individual viewers.

So if you're a viewer who's unhappy with the editorial slant of Sinclair, how do you effectively protest the company's policies? To be blunt, it's not easy to do. Which is why Sinclair isn't especially concerned about public protests. In an era where their expansion plans are moving forward without much opposition and the FCC seems uninterested in increasing the scrutiny of media companies, they don't have much to fear.

Like just about every major media company in the United States, while Sinclair Broadcasting is a publicly traded company, it is also primarily controlled by a single family. In this case, the family of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. David D. Smith currently serves as Executive Chairman and his three brothers also serve as company directors or high-level executives. So it's extremely difficult to effect any change in Sinclair editorial policy without the cooperation of members of the family who have a majority financial interest in the company.

The other challenge with mounting some sort of protest of Sinclair Broadcasting's editorial policies is that the nature of the local television affiliate market makes a nationwide protest unwieldy and nearly impossible to coordinate. Assuming all of the current deals are approved, Sinclair will soon own and/or control 233 television stations in over 100 markets, covering about 40 percent of the United States. While Sinclair has an especially close relationship with Fox, it has a least a few stations affiliated with every broadcast network. That diversity makes a national protest nearly impossible. 

Let's be clear about a couple of things. Public protests and complaints will have just about zero impact on the Smith family and how they run Sinclair Broadcasting. Big media owners have a high threshold for pain and while whining on Twitter or writing a snappy op-ed piece might make you feel good, it will have zero impact on the corporate editorial policies of any media company.

This is also not a left/right issue for me. I don't believe any media company should be mandating editorials and other political content air across their entire station group. As far as I am concerned, major media companies already have entirely too much leeway in what they are allowed to do. Providing yet another way for them to attempt to influence public opinion is not acceptable. I would feel this way if Sinclair Broadcasting was run by a Democratic-friendly family. Local television is the top news source for most Americans and we should strive to make it as free from corporate editorial interference as possible.

So what can you do? First, see if you have a local television affiliate owned by Sinclair Broadcasting. Send the station an actual letter (not email) very politely discussing your unease with the editorial mandates being imposed on the station by Sinclair management. If you see a segment you don't like, feel free to reach out to local advertisers who ran ads during that broadcast. Be polite, don't be political. Just state your unease with the segment and your belief that the news should be non-political and free of corporate interference. Public protests won't have any impact and complaining to the station's anchors and reporters won't help. They are likely to be as troubled as anyone. Besides, this is a policy that is out of their hands.

The goal here is to make the editorial policy more trouble than it is worth to the Smith family. If enough affiliates receive regular pushback from their viewers and if local advertisers are concerned about complaints, the policy will change. In the end, this is all about money and any protest should be seen in that light. If the Smith family feels their editorial policies are costing them money, the policies will change. It's just important to keep the protests polite and on-topic, which makes it less likely that Sinclair executives can argue this is part of some George Soros-led conspiracy. 

If you have any feedback on this story or have any other ideas, email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and follow me on Twitter at @aysrick.