Montana NBC Affiliate Refused to Cover Gianforte Body Slam

[Mr. Sparkle]

Last night, Montana residents who tuned into their NBC affiliate, KECI, would not have heard the now infamous audio of Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs being roughed up by GOP congressional candidate Greg Gianforte. The anchor of the evening newscast, Laurel Staples, read a statement that said, in part, “NBC Montana takes pride in reporting only verifiable facts from an independent, reliable sources.”

New York has learned that KECI news director Julie Weindel was called by NBC News to see if KECI would cover the story or had any footage of the Gianforte incident that NBC News and its affiliates could use. A well-placed source familiar with communications between KECI news director Julie Weindel and NBC News says that she was unyielding in her refusal to share any footage she may have had access to, or run a report on the incident. According to the source, Weindel said that they weren’t covering the story, though it was featured in outlets across the country at the time, explaining, “The person that tweeted [Jacobs] and was allegedly body slammed is a reporter for a politically biased publication.” Weindel then added, “You are on your own for this.”

snip...

A report in HuffPost reveals that the station was acquired, last month, by the conservative media conglomerate Sinclair Broadcasting. The KECI station manager told HuffPost that the station “did not have specific instructions or any instruction from Sinclair” regarding the Gianforte story. But specific instruction isn’t needed. A story earlier this month in the New York Times said that Sinclair requires its stations to run stories that lean right. And last year Politico reported that the Trump campaign struck an exclusive deal with Sinclair to broadcast interviews with Trump across all of its networks, an unprecedented arrangement.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/05/montana-nbc-affiliate-refused-to-cover-gianforte-body-slam.html

[atreides1]

1. And

This is how the free press, dies!!!

[dalton99a]

2. +1

[underpants]

3. Sinclair - knew it before I read it n/t

[David__77]

4. I saw the "takes pride" language on an NBC Montana website on the night of the incident.

I immediately thought of Sinclair. Certainly, the article did not need to conclude that an assault did happen. I do think it would be appropriate to quote alleged witnesses.

[onenote]

5. For the record the station is not owned by Sinclair

About a month ago Sinclair announced a deal to buy staions owned by Bonten Media including KECI. But the deal hasn't been approved by the FCC. In fact an application for such approval hasn't been filed yet as far as I know.

I've had many dealings with Sinclair over the years and they're scum. But they're also smart enough to know they'd be making a lot of trouble for themselves if they were directing the editorial decisions of a station before the FCC approved their purchase of the station.

Other Sinclair stations including the one on D.C. ran the story. I think KECI's decision was a local one.