Boycott of Sinclair Broadcasting Group
Boycott of Sinclair Broadcast Group is an effort to discourage marketers from advertising on the chain of local television news stations.[1] It was prompted by an action by the company in mandating their local news networks to read a script targeting television news organizations such as CNN, MSNBC, ABC News, and CBS News. The boycott was brought on by the audience of local news networks owned by Sinclair. Currently, elected officials are pulling their campaign ads from Sinclair, and urging companies to do the same, as well as calling for the boycott.[2][3][4] The goal of the boycott is to take Sinclair out of their 193 television stations, which reach 40% of American households, forcing local companies to stop advertising in Sinclair-owned channels, and stopping the merger between Sinclair and Tribune Media.[5] A report in Advertising Age magazine suggested that a boycott would not be easy, since it involves users first identifying the station as a Sinclair station, and then figuring out which advertisers are putting commercials on that station, and then discouraging those advertisers.[6] There was a report of one Democratic candidate pulling their advertising from a Sinclair station in Kentucky, WDKY-TV, after the revelations of the scripted ultimatum from Sinclair headquarters.[7]
Notable people involved in the boycott
Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfield[2]
Amy McGrath, Kentucky House of Representatives candidate
References
- ^ Slate magazine, April Glaser, April 2, 2018, Public Shaming Won’t Stop Sinclair: The local-news broadcaster has ignited public outrage by making its journalists rail against “fake news.” Its viewers won’t care., Retrieved April 3, 2018
- ^ a b Gstalter, Morgan (2018-04-02). "Cincinnati councilman boycotting local station owned by Sinclair". TheHill. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
- ^ CNN, Eli Watkins,. "Kentucky Democrat says she's pulling ads from Sinclair station". CNN. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
{{cite news}}:|last=has generic name (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Flint, Joe (2018-04-03). "Sinclair Broadcast Faces Backlash For Requiring Anchors to Recite Segments". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
- ^ "It's Time to Boycott Sinclair's Propaganda Machine. But We're Going to Need Your Help". The Stranger. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
- ^ Advertising Age, Jeanine Poggi, April 02, 2018, A SINCLAIR BROADCAST AD BOYCOTT WOULDN'T BE EASY, Retrieved April 3, 2018
- ^ Ben Kamisar, April 2, 2018, The Hill, Dem candidate pulls ad from Sinclair station, Retrieved April 3, 2018