Earlier this new year, David D. Smith, executive chairman of Sinclair Inc. bought The Baltimore Sun Media Group. Besides The Sun, the sale included The Capital of Annapolis, the Carroll County Times and some weekly newspapers.
Smith’s media empire, based in Hunt Valley, owns more than 200 television stations. He said he made the purchase of the Sun company personally, separate from his broadcasting empire.
At times over the years Sinclair has generated controversy over its right-wing bent, such as in March 2018 when dozens of its anchors read the same statement that included the wording, “Some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias. This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.”
Then-President Donald Trump tweeted in response to subsequent widespread criticism of Sinclair: “So funny to watch Fake News Networks, among the most dishonest groups of people I have ever dealt with, criticize Sinclair Broadcasting for being biased.”
After the sale, Smith met on Jan. 15 with Sun staff in a reportedly contentious session in which he criticized its coverage generally. One staffer told the Baltimore Brew that Smith said at the meeting, “The public interest and money — that’s what drives me.”
To get a sense of Smith’s interests, just take a look at causes to which his family foundation has donated. Among its worthy contributions — from tax forms, as reported by The Baltimore Banner — are hundreds of thousands of dollars to the local Humane Society and the House of Ruth, which helps abused and homeless women and children.
But then there are the more political donations. Among them are $581,000 to Young Americans for Liberty, a libertarian group that has opposed vaccine mandates and the teaching of “critical race theory” in public schools and advocates for gun rights; $536,000 to Project Veritas, which makes “gotcha” videos that have been accused of bias to try to discredit traditional media; $150,000 to Turning Point USA, a group aimed at students that was founded and is headed by Charlie Kirk, an election denier and Trump flunky, and $121,000 to Moms for Liberty, which has pushed for banishing certain books from school library shelves.
What’s ahead for The Sun remains to be seen, of course. Fears are that the paper will be pushed to do stories that paint the city in an increasingly negative light. A number of readers — and I know personally of quite a few — dropped their Sun subscriptions after the sale was reported. Stay tuned …
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