JOY ANN REID (HOST): Sinclair Broadcasting is much bigger than Fox News. This is an organization that bought Tribune Media Group for $3.9 billion in May. It gives the company ownership of enough local TV stations to reach 70 percent of American households. I want to play for our audience a little clip of what they are forcing their stations to air, and they have now upped the number of these they want aired on these stations every week. It is Boris Epshteyn, who viewers of this show will remember was the very propagandistic Donald Trump surrogate during the campaign. Very bombastic guy, who now is working for Sinclair, delivering this kind of thing -- not on cable, guys, this is broadcast local TV.

 

[...]

 

This is almost Pravda-esque, and this is now going out to potentially 70 percent of the broadcast viewing audience watching the news.

SHERMAN: Yes, and we have been talking about Sean Hannity this morning. My sources in and around Fox say that him and Bill O'Reilly are potentially in talks to take their shows to Sinclair. Bill O'Reilly’s wanted to get back into the game. So, Sinclair really wants to build the future of a conservative media empire, and poaching Fox's biggest names would help them do that. They already have Boris, but this again is the groundwork for what I think will be the next conservative media platform in the post-Roger Ailes era.

REID: Jon Ralston, your thoughts?

JON RALSTON: Well, I have to tell you, Joy, Sinclair actually has a presence now in Nevada. Sinclair bought the NBC affiliate here in Las Vegas that I used to work for, and I looked at my producer -- I had a program there when that happened -- that I said, “We are not long for this station.” And a month later, they cancelled the program. Not because I am not conservative, but because they only want to present one point of view. And it’s happening to the station here, and it's happening everywhere. And listen, it's a very effective, I think, and in some ways a very, very scary tool.

Previously:

A short history of the right-wing politics of Sinclair Broadcasting

The Daily Beast details how Circa, a Sinclair Broadcast Group subsidiary, rebuilt itself as a pro-Trump outlet

Experts and Tribune Media unions raise concerns about Sinclair’s history of pushing conservative “propaganda”

How Sinclair Broadcasting purchasing Tribune Media could help Trump get re-elected

John Oliver highlights Sinclair Broadcast Group's consolidation of local news to push their conservative agenda