„To borrow the credibility of the anchor and the reporter is beyond the pale.“ Nick Clooney told The Enquirer
Don’t tell Nick Clooney to read your editorial on air.
If he still worked for Channel 12, Clooney would not have joined the anchors across the country in reading an identical script attacking other outlets for producing “biased and false news.”
The Enquirer asked the former anchor about the controversy over Channel 12 WKRC’s parent company, Sinclair Broadcast Group, scripting an editorial that lamented “one-sided news stories plaguing our country.”
“I have no idea what these folks are doing for a living, but it isn’t news,” Clooney told The Enquirer.
A video shows anchors across the country reading the same editorial as if it’s their own view. Anchors Rob Braun and Cammie Dierking read the WKRC editorial.
Clooney said he hasn’t seen the video or the editorial. But the concept of a scripted editorial not identified as scripted wouldn’t have happened in the 1970s or 1980s when he anchored at WKRC.
Sure, station owners would give editorials. But the owners would give the editorials themselves, not tell anchors to read it for them, Clooney said.
“Never, however, would they have suggested, coerced, forced the anchors or the reporters to be a part of that process,” Clooney said. “They had to do it themselves. To borrow the credibility of the anchor and the reporter is beyond the pale.”
Clooney said he would have quit, become a cab driver or something, rather than read a boss’s editorial as his own.
“If all they want is a puppet, a marionette, you can get them a lot cheaper,” said Clooney, father of actor George Clooney and brother to singer-actress Rosemary Clooney.
Clooney is by no means alone in criticizing Sinclair’s fake news editorial. Cincinnati City Councilman P. G. Sittenfeld tweeted he will boycott Channel 12, denouncing Sinclair as “creepy, cult-ish and way too propagandistic.”
And here’s the thing: It’s really freakin‘ easy to #ChangeTheChannel! We are empowered as consumers & viewers. Your eyeballs = big profits. Be selective in where you aim your gaze. Profit-dependent enterprises will respond accordingly. #BoycottSinclair https://t.co/yvGax7ylkR
Sinclair produced the spots to express concern about the spread of such false media reports such as the „Pope Endorses Trump“ fake news story, which emerged just before the 2016 presidential election, that can quickly spread across social media, Scott Livingston, Sinclair’s senior vice president of news, told The Baltimore Sun in an email statement.
“Some other false stories, like the fake ‘Pizzagate’ story (a conspiracy theory that also gained arose prior to the 2016 election), can result in dangerous consequences,” he told the Sun. “We are focused on fact-based reporting. That’s our commitment to our communities. That’s the goal of these announcements: to reiterate our commitment to reporting facts in a pursuit of truth. We consider it our honor and privilege to deliver the news each night. We seek the truth and strive to be fair.”
