The Mighty Fall of Sinclair
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Before Sinclair tried to buy the Tribune stations it was mainly known in the industry as a company that owned a number of small to mid-market stations and ran things on the cheap.
But when Sinclair announced that they were buying up Tribune, the company was thrust in a spotlight that was much brighter than even they expected.
At first, they loved the attention. For the first time ever, Sinclair's David Smith felt like a player in the big leagues and he was eating it up.
Smith was meeting with current and former staffers at Fox News and he was planning the day that he could take on Fox News and become the next big right wing media company.
Sinclair even sent a memo to the employees at Tribune, telling them how it will be when they took over.
The company was greedy and cocky and they thought that having both President Trump and FCC Chair Ajit Pai in their back pocket, meant that they could do what and when they wanted.
But, it was that greed that cost them.
Sinclair was told they would have to give up stations in an effort to takeover over Tribune. Instead of doing so, Sinclair wanted to hand over some of the bigger stations to their friends and then they would still run them. In others words, the stations would still be in in Sinclair's full control.
Then it started to turn.
Their pal Ajit Pai said that Sinclair was being shady when it came to trying to get the Tribune deal passed. In the end, the FCC basically killed the deal, Tribune walked away and then turned around and sued Sinclair for a billion dollars.
Sinclair's greed got in the way and it bit them in the ass.
The Baltimore Sun says that this will hurt the company for years to come. The Sun writes that when the head of the company you were about to partner with for the last 15 months and the chair of the FCC are both calling you shady — and one of them is willing to take on the president of the United States who appointed him and the other is going to court to prove it in what is sure to be a long and costly process.
They write, "and that is only the start of of Sinclair’s woes on this the first day of the rest of its corporate life after flying too close to the sun and falling to earth in a ball of molten wax."
Trump came out an showed his support for Sinclair, but the Sun writes that is not exactly the endorsement you want. They write, "Having Trump endorse your journalism as he calls the mainstream press the “enemy of the people” is like having Harvey Weinstein endorse your company’s treatment of women in the workplace."
Sinclair got burned by greed and cockiness and one has to wonder if they learned a thing?
I doubt it.
