Tag Archives: WCAX

WCAX/Gray TV’s Greta Van Susteren: “I am now the local media.”

WCAX’s catch phrase was once “Vermont’s Own News station” but no more. In May 2017 the station became part of Gray Television, a large  corporation based in Atlanta, GA, with 144 local TV stations covering 10.4% of U.S. households. Layoffs hit the WCAX newsroom about a year later.

Although not considered to be as openly right-wing as Sinclair Broadcasting which stipulates all outlets must carry conservative political contentGray TV may be “Foxifying” WCAX  a bit.

This fall, just in time for the 2020 presidential race, Gray-owned stations will begin airing Full Court Press, a Sunday public-affairs program featuring FoxNews veteran Greta Van Susteren. On theHill.com Gray TV Chairman and CEO Hilton Hatchet Howell, Jr., characterized Full Court Press this way: “Our goal is to provide critical information without bias to allow viewers to form their own opinions and reach their own decisions by exploring all sides of a complex issue.”

For those not familiar with her, Van Susteren spent 14years as a prime-time FoxNews hostreplaced by Tucker Carlson in 2016.Then in 2017 she was on MSNBC but was dropped after six months.plutotweet

At Fox, Van Susteren once wondered if the government was wasting our tax dollars at NASA because of the long delay getting satellite images from Pluto back to Earth.

More recently Media Matters reported something more problematic : With one terrible tweet, Greta Van Susteren helped fuel a conspiracy theory that made its way to the president, who repeated it within hours

On Twitter, former Fox News and MSNBC host Greta Van Susteren tweeted that the “FBI obviously tipped off CNN,” adding that “even if you don’t like Stone, it is curious why Mueller’s office tipped off CNN.”

Nearly three hours later, Van Susteren conceded that she might be wrong about CNN acting on a tip. Even so, the original tweet, which had accumulated thousands of retweets, remained up and continued to be shared. The new tweet, correcting her mistake, had just 95 retweets at the time of this writing. [The Mueller investigation later vigorously denied the claim in a court filing]

The 2016 presidential primary and general election brought in upwards of $100 million on political ads in broadcast and cable television in New England markets. And now Full Court Press here in Vermont with a little bit of FoxNews is going to get a share this fall for Gray Television. vanSuswcax2

Van Susteren told The LA Times: […] she expects Gray’s geographical reach to help in booking presidential candidates to appear on the program.

“Politics begins in local markets,” Van Susteren said. “I am now the local media. I’m going to reach their voters.”

Gives a whole new spin to the late columnist Peter Freyne’s moniker for WCAX: he always called it WGOP; only now, of course he might call it WFOX, or WGRAY.

Enabling Donald’s TV news

It’s not only Fox News that covers Trump’s back. Sinclair Broadcasting, the largest owner of local TV stations in the U.S., is widely known as a champion of right-wing GOP causes. During the presidential election Sinclair and the Trump campaign struck a deal in order to gain favorable media coverage .Recently they started a promotional campaign for their local news outlets to broadcast.

Now Sinclair has  tailored promotional spots for its almost 200 local news outlets that seem to mirror  parts of Trump’s oft repeated bogus “fake news” claims. Their corporate memo to local stations dictates the promo be scheduled “to create maximum reach and frequency.”

StateofTVOne of Sinclair’s local anchorswho remained anonymous for fear of retributiontold CNN: “I felt like a POW recording a message,” […] On its face, some of the language is not controversial. But that’s precisely why some staffers were so troubled by it. The promo script, they say, belies Sinclair management’s actual agenda to tilt reporting to the right.

CNN reports: The promos begin with one or two anchors introducing themselves and saying “I’m [we are] extremely proud of the quality, balanced journalism that [proper news brand name of local station] produces. But I’m [we are] concerned about the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country.”

Then the media bashing begins.

“The sharing of biased and false news has become all too common on social media,” the script says. “More alarming, national media outlets are publishing these same fake stories without checking facts first. Unfortunately, some members of the national media are using their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control ‘exactly what people think’ … This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.”

Then the anchors are supposed to strike a more positive tone and say that their local station pursues the truth. “We understand Truth is neither politically ‘left or right.’ Our commitment to factual reporting is the foundation of our credibility, now more than ever.”

[…]At the end of the promo, viewers are encouraged to send in feedback “if you believe our coverage is unfair.” The instructions say that “corporate will monitor the comments and send replies to your audience on your behalf.” In other words, local stations are cut out of the interactions with viewers. Management will handle it instead.

Sinclair’s political bent has been a factor in its pending acquisition of Tribune Media. Sinclair is already the biggest owner of local television stations in the country — with 173 it either owns or operates — and Tribune will give it dozens more, furthering the company’s ambitions. Some analysts believe Sinclair wants to rival Fox News, although officials at Sinclair have rejected those suggestions.

Vermont’s own little TV station, WCAX, formerly locally owned and managed, was scooped up last year not by Sinclair but by Gray Television. The large Atlanta Georgia-based communication corporation  may not share Sinclair’s solid right wing reputation but they certainly have their sights set on New Hampshire’s  First-in-the–Nation© presidential primary’s  advertising profits. And not to be paranoid but it’s worth being watchful of our neighbor state’s media scene. Jacqueline Policastro, the Washington bureau chief for Gray Television, was among those at a special White House dinner after Trump addressed Congress last year. Attending the Trump administration’s effort to court and spark local TV news markets were reporters from Hearst, Scripps, Cox, Nexstar, and naturally, Sinclair.

Commenting in an interview early this year on how he thought President Trump might weather the Mueller investigation, former White House Counsel John Dean (of  Watergate notoriety) observed: “I think there’s more likelihood (Nixon) might have survived if there’d been a Fox News.”  The implication, of course, is that with the backing of Fox Newsor another powerful national media propaganda outleteven Richard Nixon, how ever damaged and corrupt as a leader, could have clung to power.

And now, facing multiple investigations, President Trump can apparently count not only on Fox News nationally but on Sinclair Broadcasting to cover his troubled a … ah, backside at the local level, while all three entities fart  on democracy.