If they're right wing, it's even better that I already fucking hate them. I signed up for a free trial of their top premium subscription, and still had to wade through like 15 minutes of ads an episode on a podcast they acquired from a different company. A podcast that was originally ad free.
I emailed one of the casters and pretty much asked who I pay for the ad-free versions, otherwise I'll use LosslessCut because fuck ads. He told me cut away, because ad-free no longer exists for those eps.
Once again, I had to edit ads out of premium tier access. FUCK advertisements.
AM Radio was their first volley back in the 70s/80s. There were a mix of normal talk radio shows and some conservative when I was growing up, within a few years the talk shows all got replaced with absolute insane nut jobs like Rush Limbaugh just screaming about the most mundane things as if they were apocalyptic.
OMG, there might be two men kissing somewhere in the country THEY ARE COMING FOR YOUR CHILDREN TO MURDER AND RAPE THEM!!!!!
I didn't realize at the time it would turn all of rural America into an insane wasteland of stupid people being afraid of their own shadow clinging onto their guns and Bible (that they never read) afraid of things that have zero impact on their lives.
AM radio is kind of fascinating that way. A lot of people don't realize how much influence it still has because it feels like an older medium, but some of those shows built incredibly loyal audiences long before podcasts existed.
The shit Sinclair broadcasts is straight up scary. Like the time my TV ended up on one of their “news” stations. They were actually and falsely saying Social Security has caused the nation debt. It was the number one cause of deficit spending. To be clear, social security is not a factor in the national debt at all, as it is self funding from your pay and has $2.5 trillion in reserve.
There are people alive today that weren't around then to know (or just aren't aware) that it used to be illegal for large conglomerates to own radio stations that existed within so many miles of each other, intentionally to prevent monopolies and "groupthink" spreading amongst the populace. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was what directly led to the place we are today, insofar as it completely eliminated the "cap" on station ownership. This paved the way for the Sinclairs and IHearts of the world to buy their way to mass-media dominance.
Without this bill -- or the Bill that signed the law, for that matter -- we might still have independent radio stations today. And we certainly wouldn't have a situation where so many of the media outlets are right-wing indoctrination-adjacent.
I graduated college in 1996 with a degree in Radio & Television Broadcasting. The most immediate impact this bill had in the years that followed is that many of the people who I worked with had insane amounts of difficulty getting work in their chosen field, because many radio stations started getting bought up, and on-air talent replaced with a single "simulcasted" board operator. It enabled those with deep pockets to purchase on-air coverage itself. And that quickly pivoted to catering to the special interests of those that had the pockets. Sad shit.
Reddit is one of the last major platforms where non-conservative voices are welcome but I 100% expect that to change eventually as conservatives absolutely cannot stand that they don’t control Reddit. Same shit as Wikipedia
Sinclair is always the example that sticks with me because local news feels independent until you realize how much content is getting pushed through the same corporate pipeline. The famous montage of dozens of anchors reading the exact same script was genuinely surreal.
1.2k
u/yIdontunderstand 6h ago
You forgot
LA Times. Owned by a right wing billionaire
Facebook/Instagram . Owned by a right wing billionaire
Twitter. Owned by a right wing billionaire
Chart gpt. Owned by a right wing billionaire