Mike Bloomberg: Want to help save democracy? Buy Sinclair
Dear Mr. Bloomberg,
If you’ve finished collecting and reaffixing your organs following Wednesday night’s disembowelment at the Democratic debate in Nevada, I’d like to offer a bit of advice. You want to help save democracy in America in 2020?
Drop out of the race and spend your money buying Sinclair Broadcasting.
Pulling the plug on Facebook — especially in light of the company’s unfathomable decision to allow false information to be published in political ads and the terrifying disinformation campaign ramping up on the platform in 2020 — would seem to be the single best thing for everyone, but that’s not a realistic option. And even you can’t afford to buy it.
So we’re left with the next best thing.
Now, I’ll be honest. When I conceived this idea a few weeks ago, the original pitch was to buy Fox News. But while Fox News may be the most obvious purveyor of propaganda in American society, the question of what, exactly, to do with it after purchase is a bit murky.
Dismantling it is possible, sure, but a terrible business decision. Could you walk the fine line of clearing out its editorial content and restoring it to a straight news organization, all while trying to retain its viewership? Maybe, but there’s no guarantee you wouldn’t immediately drive viewers elsewhere.
That’s only one of the reasons Sinclair is a more attractive purchase target, though. Sinclair’s enterprise value, after its big sports regional network buy last year, is a shade under $16 billion. That makes it a cheaper buy than Fox News. Sinclair also owns nearly 200 stations in more than 100 American markets, plus a handful of additional sports networks. Purchasing it would greatly diversify your media portfolio and allow you to promote your existing Bloomberg Media content into new markets.
In an age where trust in the media continues to wane due in no small part to all this disinformation, local news remains the most trusted news source for Americans. Even as local papers have gotten smaller, closed shop, and even been dismantled by vulture capitalists, local TV news remains a strong player in the media landscape. And as corruption abounds in our country, the need is greater than ever for good journalism to shine a light on it, not just nationally, but in all of our communities.
The beautiful thing is that you really don’t need to do much at all, except stop delivering the kind of newsgroup-wide mandates that Sinclair has issued over the past few years.
It’s all simple, really. Sinclair has already (for now) dumped some of their highly partisan national commentaries that have no business on a local news channel anyway. All that’s left is to get rid of the newsroom edicts and “must run” stories. Simply let the journalists do their jobs without such interference — and, hey, maybe beef up the investigative desks — and you’ll already have done a great service to the country.
I have my own, small Sinclair experience to share. In the spring of 2015, I went to a Sinclair-owned station in the D.C. area for a semi-regular segment on a local TV news show. Before going on the air that day, the host warned me that the entire segment might get dropped, as the station had been ordered to interrupt live programming for a potential piece of breaking news. What, do you suppose, was so vital to the national interest, so urgent and compelling as to discard regularly scheduled programming in order to bring to America?
Ben Carson’s presidential run announcement, as he was “the company’s first choice” in the 2016 election (as it were, our show finished before he began).
So, Mr. Bloomberg, look — this doesn’t have to be painful. You can keep getting on stage and incurring the wrath of the rest of the field, stumbling and bumbling your way through mealy-mouthed responses and booing audiences. Or you can take your money and make an investment that will actually help America.
It’s your call. But from here, it sure seems you’ve got a lot less to lose and a lot more to gain doing things my way.
