Sources: Sinclair Looking at Huge FCC Fines
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Sources tell FTVLive that at the recent Sinclair corporate News Director meetings in Baltimore, Sinclair CEO David Smith chastised the ND's at the meeting.
As one News Director said, "Smith was crazy angry."
According to sources, it seems that around 30 Sinclair stations screwed up a pay for play story about Huntsman Cancer Institute out of Salt Lake City.
You can go to any of the Sinclair stations websites, type in "Huntsman Cancer Institute" into the search bar and you will see a number of stories pop up.
FTVLive did this on WPEC's (West Palm Beach) website and found at least 20 stories about the Huntsman Cancer Institute, which is located 2500 miles from the station.
Sinclair has a deal to shill for the Institute across their stations. This includes stories in station's newscast, in which the Institute pays Sinclair to run.
Sources say that around 30 stations screwed up one of those stories and may have violated FCC rules. The FCC kind of frowns upon pay for play stories in a newscast that aren't properly labeled.
Insiders say that the FCC is looking into what happened at the Sinclair stations and fines could reach into the millions of dollars.
Sources tell FTVLive that Smith lit into the News Directors at the Baltimore meetings.
While Sinclair is doing their best to keep what happened in Baltimore very hush hush, if the FCC fines are levied against Sinclair, you can bet it won't be a secret anymore.
Stay tuned.....
