Right-wing media groups

{{significantly problematic}}{{Media}}{{update}}
The following is a list of right-wing media groups.
==Sinclair Broadcast Group==
{{expand section}}
{{wpl|Sinclair Broadcast Group}} is a right-wing media giant that pushes [[alt-right]] ([[Sebastian Gorka]], [[Mike Cernovich]], "[[deep state]]") and pro-[[Donald Trump|Trump]] [[propaganda]]<ref name=schmitz>[https://thinkprogress.org/sinclair-forces-reporters-to-read-script-about-fake-news-63ae6fcea30e/ Local TV forced to denounce 'one-sided news' by America's largest media company: Reporters must read from a script about fake news and to air segments on the "Deep State."] by Melanie Schmitz (Mar 30, 2018, 3:16 pm) ''ThinkProgress''.</ref><ref name=kaplan>[https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2017/05/08/sinclair-broadcast-purchasing-tribune-media-heres-short-history-its-right-wing-politics/216330 A short history of the right-wing politics of Sinclair Broadcasting] by Alex Kaplan (July 18, 2017, 4:59 PM EDT) ''Media Matters for America''.</ref> Like its competitor Clear Channel (now iHeartMedia), Sinclair was able to purchase multiple stations in individual markets, and consolidate ownership in regional markets largely by exploiting loopholes in ownership regulations.<ref>[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/the-growth-of-sinclairs-conservative-media-empire The Growth of Sinclair's Conservative Media Empire]. ''The New Yorker,'' 22 October 2018. {{quotebox|There are regulations that prevent any single company from controlling too large a share of the press to protect competition and the free exchange of ideas. Sinclair has achieved its formidable reach by exploiting loopholes in these regulations. During the past few decades, it has bought small and midsized television-station operators and then circumvented regulations by setting up shell companies that on paper appear to be separate entities but over which Sinclair exerts almost total control.}}</ref>

Sinclair currently owns 193 television stations. Of these, 126 belong to the "Big Four" networks, with Fox being the most represented network. Another 25 stations are part of the CW Television Network.

In 2020, Sinclair paid the US Government $48 million, the largest civil penalty involving a broadcaster for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in history. The fine was for smarmy business dealings related to their attempted acquisition of Tribune Media stations in 2018.<ref>[http://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_c274fd5ed5fe2000985668fe5f0f26a9 Sinclair Broadcasting will pay $48 million civil penalty to FCC]. [[CNN]], 6 May 2020.</ref><ref>David Folkenflik, [https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=851783937 FCC Fines Sinclair Record $48 Million For Deceptive Bid For Tribune Stations]. [[NPR]], 7 May 2020.</ref>

===Must runs===
Sinclair makes all of its stations run what are known as 'must runs'.<ref>Jaycey Fortin and Jonah Engel Bromwich, [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/business/media/sinclair-news-anchors-script.html Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script.] ''The New York Times'', 2 April 2018. {{quotebox|Sinclair regularly sends video segments to the stations it owns. These are referred to as "must-runs" and include content like terrorism news updates, commentators speaking in support of President Trump or speeches from company executives like the one from Mr. Livingston last year.}}</ref> These segments include the Terrorism Alert Desk, where Sinclair pushes anti-Muslim "news" even if the stories aren't verified by legit sources.<ref name=kaplan/> Must-run segments often feature former-Trump White House official and campaign surrogate Boris Epshteyn.<ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/style/wp/2018/04/02/get-to-know-sinclair-broadcast-group-the-conservative-local-news-giant-with-a-growing-reach/ Trump said Sinclair 'is far superior to CNN.' What we know about the conservative media giant.] by Eli Rosenberg (April 3 at 6:56 AM) ''The Washington Post''.</ref>

===Criticism===
[[John Oliver]] brought Sinclair's antics to the attention of a wider share of the public.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc&t=242s Sinclair Broadcast Group: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)], [[Youtube]], 21 July 2017. ''Sinclair Broadcast Group is the largest owner of local TV stations in the country. That's alarming considering that they often inject political views into local news.''</ref>

===Fake false news===
In 2018, all news broadcasters in the Sinclair group had to read a script that insinuates without proof that most other news outlets are biased/report [[fake news]].<ref name=schmitz/>

==Salem Radio Network==

{{cquote|"Politically, [[groupthink|everyone is with it]], but theologically, when he says the country should [[Reactionary|turn back to God]], the question is: Which [[God]]?"|||Vice president of Salem Radio Network Tom Tradup disagrees with [[Glenn Beck]], [[Garbage in garbage out|but only because he's a Mormon]].}}

{{cquote|"This is [[secular]] radio. [[Cognitive dissonance|But part of the idea is that you cannot separate faith from the ongoing debate in society at large or the nation's political future]]."|||Michael Medved}}

'''Salem Radio Network''' is a division of Salem Communications. It provides an outlet for [[neoconservatism|neoconservatives]], focusing on supporting the [[religious right]] and other [[radical]] right voices. It is arguably more extreme than [[Fox News]] and more or less promotes right-wing [[Christian]] [[Evangelicalism]]. It is a major part of [[conservative talk radio]], only being overshadowed by iHeartMedia.

The network's hosts have become somewhat infamous for being both [[Fractal wrongness|horribly wrong]] with nearly every prediction they make and for occasionally having [[Proll|extremely offensive]] yet utterly bizarre outbursts,<ref>[http://thedailybanter.com/2012/09/romney-cheerleader-hugh-hewitt-always-wrong-on-everything/ Hugh Hewitt being wrong on virtually every election outcome in both 2008 and 2012]</ref><ref>[http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/257836/god-and-congress-dennis-prager Dennis Prager being wrong on the "In God We Trust" motto not being shown on television]</ref><ref>[http://www.amazon.com/The-Odds-Against-Obama-President-ebook/dp/B0093L8YXW Michael Medved's ''book'' on why Obama will lose in 2012]</ref><ref>[http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/24/opinion/bennett-final-debate/#cnn-disqus-area Bill Bennett on Mitt Romney's "momentum".]</ref> which might be a source of hilarity if some people didn't take them seriously. That being said SRN can be considered somewhat obscure to most mainstream audiences, with most of their current punditry being targeted towards a relatively smaller audience (compared to [[Fox News]] anyways) that largely consists of [[Preaching to the choir|devoted]] [[wingnut]]s who think they are listening to actual intellectuals ([[irony meter]] at 50% since they [[cognitive dissonance|push a decent amount]] of [[anti-intellectualism]] as well).

===Influence===
One of the founders of Salem Communications, Stuart Epperson, has been named as one of the most influential evangelicals in America thanks to his company.<ref>http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/12/higher-frequency</ref> The company has helped get [[George Bush]] and other Republicans elected and has helped radicalize the [[GOP]] by supporting only hardliners and "true conservatives". The Radio Network itself has roughly 103 stations and millions of listeners. Today, almost all the hosts push [[global warming denialism]], [[Obamacare]] [[death panel]]s (like [[WND]] they even had ads for ObamaCare survival kits), subtle to not-so-subtle [[homophobia]], and [[American Exceptionalism]], as well as overwhelming support for the [[Republican Party]]. The hosts tend to [[Echo chamber|echo]] one another, and most of the time, it seems like just one host could do the jobs of all the others. It's safe to say that most [[liberal|liberals]] and even [[centrist|centrists]] seriously underestimated the network's power in its early years and when the [[Fairness Doctrine]] got repealed, the station managed to dominate others in relatively little time.

===Programs and hosts===
As a network, Salem is the right-wing version of [[Air America Radio]] as most Salem stations carry the entire lineup of hosts save for one local show. In its heyday, Air America required its affiliates to carry the lineup.

;William "Bill" Bennett
:Former United States Secretary of Education during the [[Reagan]] years and Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under Bush, he is arguably the most [[authoritarian]] of the hosts. Bennett supports the [[War on Drugs]] and has said that beheading drug dealers is "morally plausible".<ref>http://www.nndb.com/people/493/000022427/</ref> He has also said that if hypothetically speaking, all black babies got aborted, the crime rate would drop (though he didn't advocate for it).<ref>http://www.trust.org/item/?map=factbox-media-personalities-disciplined-for-inappropriate-remarks</ref> When Bennett got called out for it, he said he unfairly got condemned for a [[thought experiment]]. Despite his urging for self-discipline and his organization's opposition to the expansion of legalized [[gambling]], [[hypocrisy|it has been revealed he lost millions gambling in Vegas]].

;Mike Gallagher
:Said by some to be, or to had been, the sixth most popular radio host in the U.S. Has called maternity leave a "racket" and has wanted critics of [[George Bush]], which includes Matt Damon and [[Keith Olbermann]], to get detained until the [[Iraq War]] was over because they're "traitors".<ref>http://www.mediaite.com/tv/megyn-kelly-returns-to-mock-mike-gallagher-for-his-maternity-racket-comment/</ref><ref>gallagher-damon-olbermann/</ref> Hates the [[Bill Clinton|Clintons]] and blamed [[Barack Obama]] and other Democrats for the fact that Gallagher was unable to sell his house within three weeks, due to their policies not supporting [[trickle down economics]].<ref>http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/radio-host-mike-gallagher-blames-presid</ref> Wanted [[Muslim]]s to have their line at airports, and didn't specify how you would even identify Muslims at airports.<ref>http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/radio-host-mike-gallagher-blames-presid</ref>

;[[Dennis Prager]]
:Most well known for harassing [[Keith Ellison]] when Ellison was going to get sworn into office on the [[Koran]], saying that it would hurt American values more than [[9/11]].<ref>http://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2006/11/28/america,_not_keith_ellison,_decides_what_book_a_congressman_takes_his_oath_on/page/full</ref> He's an [[anti-environmentalism|anti-environmentalist]], pushing the "[[DDT]] got banned in Africa" myth as well as global warming denialism, claiming it's just an excuse for the government to take power.<ref>http://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2013/02/26/dennis-prager-n1520196/page/full</ref><ref>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvLdkvJzWOk</ref> He wrote a ten-page essay in 1993 on why [[homosexuality]] is immoral. People mocked it in the blogosphere when he wrote columns on why [[Marital rape|women should submit to sex with their husbands even if they're not in the mood]].<ref>http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/dennis-prager-all-women-if-youre-not-mo</ref> Has accused [[Ron Paul]], and anyone else he doesn't like, of being a "radical lefty".<ref>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqHAoXRVk4g</ref> Like Paul, he has an online following that defends him no matter what he does. Despite the network's Christian leanings, Prager is [[Jewish]].

;[[Michael Medved]]
:Possibly the dumbest of the group, saying that [[Nazi]] leaders, including [[Adolf Hitler]], were [[gay]] and enjoyed having gay orgies.<ref>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0eHDo3mIkc&feature=related&bpctr=1371771436</ref> He has written… ''questionable'' things about [[slavery]], including that the Africans who were forcibly brought to America had inferior genes to the Europeans who came to America because the African slaves lacked the "adventuring" gene.<ref>http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelmedved/2008/05/14/respecting_-_and_recognizing_-_american_dna/page/full</ref> Thought the movie ''Happy Feet'' was being too supportive of [[gay rights]]. Like Prager, he is Jewish despite the network's Christian overtones.

;Hugh Hewitt
:Spends most of the day ranting about how [[liberal]] he thinks the [[media]] is. Got [[Rand Paul]] in trouble when he pushed him to talk about the "[[Friends of Hamas]]" anti-[[Israel]] organization that was supposedly sending money to Chuck Hagel. As it turns out, "Friends of Hamas" never existed in the first place.<ref>http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/02/friends-of-hamas-made-up-chuck-hagel-boogeyman.html</ref> Championed [[Mitt Romney]] for president and thought he would win in a landslide. Oops.<ref>http://townhall.com/columnists/hughhewitt/2012/11/03/mittmentum_builds/page/full</ref>

===Books===
All hosts have written books to profit off of their [[sucker|fans]]. All of these books are [[Bullshit|well thought out and thought-provoking.]] They argue in favor of [[neoconservatism]] and use hasty generalizations about liberals (i.e. [[Still the Best Hope|Prager calls liberals "utopians"]]) [[Strawman|to argue with them]]. They also lump centrists like the Clintons, Obama, and [[Chris Matthews]] in with liberals and left-wingers. It's another form of their radio show for those who need their preconceptions confirmed because they don't have enough confidence in their own beliefs.

===An upside, maybe?===
On the other hand, their Salem Radio Labs division created the [[open source]] radio automation package Rivendell<ref>http://rivendellaudio.org http://rivendell.tryphon.org/wiki/Main_Page</ref> (now maintained by [http://paravelsystems.com Paravel Systems]). People can examine this in either of two ways. Some filthy communist mole could have made a software package that small radio broadcasters use to smooth their operations and exposed the farm from under their bosses' noses. Alternatively, some rat bastard could have chosen to give away for free the tools that a big radio network homogenizes the life out of their programming with so other big radio companies could do the same while saving on software licenses.

==iHeartMedia==
iHeartMedia, formerly Clear Channel Communications, is a corporation based out of San Antonio, [[Texas]]. It deals largely in radio broadcasting.<ref name="CC:About">[https://www.iheartmedia.com/ iHeartMedia homepage] From their website.</ref> The company also has strong sympathies with the American Right-Wing. The company spun-out its outdoor advertising as a separate company which retained the Clear Channel brand in 2019.

===Holdings===
In the [[United States]], the company exists in the top 50 markets, and then some. They own and operate Premiere Radio, which provides [[Wingnut welfare]] for various loudmouths.

==="We want the airwaves"===
*After a member of [[Chilling_effect#The Chicks|The Chicks]] (back when the group was called Dixie Chicks) declared [[Dubya]] made them ashamed to be from Texas, their music mysteriously vanished from Clear Channel's stations.<ref name="Dixie Chicks">[http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2003/03/17/daily14.html Dixie Chicks Axed by Clear Channel], Jacksonville Business Journal.</ref> But, you know, [[Liberal media]].

==See also==
*[[American Family Association]]
*[[Fox News]]
*[[Liberal media]]
*[[Rush Limbaugh]]
*[[Conservative talk radio]] — Represents the more "mainstream" (but still hardline) Evangelical arm of this industry. 
*[[Liberal talk radio]]
*[[Father Coughlin]] — The prototype right-wing radio host, though his views were more of a populist "radical centrism" ''a la'' [[Chuck Harder]]. Also, unlike these guys, he was anti-Semitic, and late in his career displayed explicit support for [[fascism]] and the Axis powers.
*[[Wingnut welfare]]
*[[2001 Clear Channel memorandum]]

==External links==
*{{wpa|Sinclair Broadcast Group}}
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc YouTube Channel]
*[http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/19/arts/the-pop-life-after-the-horror-radio-stations-pull-some-songs.html New York Times article]
*[http://web.archive.org/web/20080416014917/http://www.lipmagazine.org/articles/featwishnia_142.shtml"Clear Channel's Hit List"]
*[http://web.archive.org/web/20080620024102/http://zephyr.unr.edu/zephyr/arts/archives/art_dutpuch_musicindustry.html"Music Industry Responds to Terrorism"]

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Conservatism]]
[[Category:Propaganda]]
[[Category:American media]]
[[Category:Broadcasting]]
[[Category:Conservative deceit]]

Categories: Conservatism, Propaganda, American media, Broadcasting, Conservative deceit