Sinclair goons to destroy venerable newspaper

I’m generally aligned with the conventional wisdom that holds that Season 5 of The Wire was the weakest because the journalism storyline was a little broad and pedantic. And while it held up better than I expected on a fairly recent re-watch, the fact that Simon was clearly working out an idiosyncratic personal grudge did create some problems — most notably shifting the focus from the clearly important (corporate ownership decimating staff and eliminating valuable local knowledge) to the much more dubiously important (editors being too interested in chasing Pulitzers.) And Shattered Glass has already told the invented-journalism-that-knows-its-audience story perfectly.

Having said all that, real life is much broader than any fiction when it comes to the Baltimore Sun:

The Baltimore Sun’s new owner doesn’t seem to be on the same page as the paper’s staff.

David D. Smith, the chairman of the monopolistic, conservative, local media empire Sinclair Broadcast Group, scooped up Baltimore’s hometown legacy paper last week for an unspecified, nine-figure dollar point—but his outsize ideas and a crude first impression might have just slapped a damper on the partnership from the get-go.

During a contentious two-hour meet and greet with staff on Tuesday, Smith said he had read the daily paper—which has been a staple in the Baltimore market since its inception in 1837—just four times, according to NPR’s David Folkenflik.

Despite that, Smith seems to be keen on making some big changes. He announced that although the Sun was a profitable enterprise, it could be more profitable. Smith harangued the paper for failing to focus on what he deemed were stories worth reader interest, like fraud in local government, Folkenflik reported. The Baltimore Sun won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting for its investigation on corruption in the Baltimore mayor’s office.

The Baltimore Banner reported that in the same meeting, Smith was asked about previous comments he made in 2018, when he claimed that print media is “so left-wing as to be meaningless dribble.” Smith said he stood by those comments. Asked again if he felt that way about The Baltimore Sun specifically, he replied, “In many ways, yes.”

It’s clear what Smith’s aim is with his purchase of Maryland’s largest daily newspaper. His TV empire’s local Baltimore station has been keen on a series of coverage blaming the city’s Black, Democratic mayor, Brandon Scott, for a flurry of local issues, including ongoing gun violence and education-related issues. And Smith’s tax records, obtained by the Associated Press, paint a clearer picture of the multimillionaire’s political affiliations, with donations to far-right political messaging machines like Project Veritas and Turning Point USA. Campaign contributions by the 73-year-old have also generally veered Republican for the last couple decades, according to a report by the Center for Public Integrity.

Smith deflected questions about his own political leanings in Tuesday’s meeting with staff. Instead, he spent most of the time talking about profits, at one point ordering reporters to “go make me some money,” according to The Baltimore Banner.

I don’t think Smith will succeed in making the paper more profitable, but I’m sure completely destroying it as a journalistic enterprise will be more than enough reward for him.