Nexstar requires its stations to generate local content but otherwise gives them wide leeway. "Nexstar has long viewed the acquisition of Tribune Media as a strategically, financially and operationally compelling opportunity that brings immediate value to shareholders of both. The channel was created in response to the growing demand for ideological diversity in the cable news landscape. In the first case, Biden v. Nebraska, majority of the justices appeared skeptical that Congress gave clear enough authorization for the Biden administration to forgive billions [] MBFC Credibility Rating: HIGH CREDIBILITY. Company executives have described NewsNation as self-funding, as the conversion to news is taking the cost of entertainment programming off its books. But they were also discussed as recently as last week on NewsNation. The recent segment by Nexstar Washington correspondent Anna Wiernicki is largely about how the implementation of President Joe Bidens new immigration policy will work and specifically how the Department of Homeland Security is going to begin to let asylum-seekers into the United States, officially ending the Trump administrations policy that forced people to stay in Mexico. It now has 199 stations across the United States, including NewsNation, a cable outlet based in Chicago that the company envisions as a competitor to Fox News, CNN and MSNBC. However, their specific coverage of Coronavirus and race relations in America indicate a leftward lean with story selection. Nexstar has also hired lobbyists to exert influence in Congress and at the FCC while simultaneously expanding its DC bureau, where its news staff covers Congress. The unfolding crisis has shown local news outlets to be indispensablejust as it has threatened their survival. The firms last media bias chart, issued in January, placed NewsNation squarely in the center of the political spectrum, while rating CNN as skewing left, Fox News as hyper-partisan right and MSNBC as hyper-partisan left.. But after eight months on the air, NewsNation has been plagued by minuscule ratings and internal strife over allegations of meddling in news coverage. These sources have minimal bias and use very few loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by appeals to emotion or stereotypes). Lastly, the KTLA website does not publish op-eds. And regardless of how much an individual station manager personally values accountability reporting, in the end that manager is tasked with keeping the station profitable, which means running more hours of news programming with a lean staff, making it much more difficult for a reporter to spend two months setting up a necessary interview with a government official. Several recipients of Nexstar donations, including Sens. CIS Executive Director Mark Krikorian has spent years attacking immigrants, both documented and undocumented. They argued that the merger would diminish local news because Nexstar lays off employees at some stations it acquires and relies too much on pumping content from its regional hubs. Is a national conglomerate the future of local news? WIERNICKI: But the White House says that isnt part of the plan. Retransmission fees now account for roughly half of Nexstars total revenueand the majority of these agreements are locked down until 2022, so this revenue is expected to remain steady or even increase. Read our profile on the United States government and media. The founder, chairman, president, and CEO of Nexstar is Perry A. Sook. The political news publication, which started as an insiders guide to Washington and greatly expanded its audience after it went digital, fetched a price of $130 million. The network has built its brand on promising to deliver high-quality local TV, and the means by which it proposes to do thataggressive consolidationbuffers against a troubling future. Official PAC Name: NEXSTAR MEDIA GROUP, INC.POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (NEXSTAR PAC) Location: IRVING , TX 75062 Industry: TV/Movies/Music; Commercial TV & radio stations Treasurer: CARTER, THOMAS FEC Committee ID: C00567388 (Look up the documents filed at the FEC) The FCC agreed, and in their final decision allowing the merger they went a step further and enshrined a new policy that restricts public opposition to future mergers. WGN America is set for a r On paper, Nexstar stations reach 38 percent of American households that own a TV, just below the maximum allowed by market caps designed to prevent monopolies. WTNH staff described problems long familiar to local journalists across the country: too few reporters and too-quick turnarounds. Sook seems to have anticipated this; in 2019 he requested, and was denied, was worth $16.4 million, while the median salary of Nexstars thirteen thousand employees was $43,537. The criticisms have merit, but the picture is complicated: although Nexstars coverage is uneven, many of its stations nationwide do provide substantive local news. Sook founded Nexstar in 1996, when he purchased WYOU in Scranton, Pennsylvania. That night they purchased the domain name BorderReport.com, and soon afterward Sandra Sanchez and Julian Resendiz, two veteran newspaper journalists, were hired to report for the new site. 3) The broadcast stations (NBC, CBS, ABC) and online news sites like Yahoo and Google have a more middle-of-the-road audience than other mainstream media outlets. On March 1, 2021, the channel was relaunched from WGN America into NewsNation, a cable news network named after its flagship news program. NewsNation has also added dedicated correspondents in Washington and Atlanta and hired Rich McHugh, the former NBC News producer who worked alongside Ronan Farrow. See all Least Biased Sources. Instead, the interview treated Bensman as an expert on immigration policy who can provide a legitimate opposing view to the Biden administrations plan. For Ad-Free Subscriptions go here: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/membership-account/membership-levels/, Terms and Conditions NewsNation, previously named WGN America, had been positioned by Nexstar at its debut last year as a just-the-facts news channel. Unlike Sinclair, however, Nexstar's syndicated content is usually less openly conservative. All plans give access to our growing exclusive content! Media bias has contributed to Americans becoming more politically polarized. Pew has basically taken the average viewer/consumer of all of these media outlets and plotted them on a continuum, trying to ascertain which outlets are favored bywhich side of the political spectrum. On Sunday mornings, the station airs Capitol Report, a half-hour roundtable conversation with Republican and Democratic public figures about hot topics being debated in Hartford. Press Freedom Rating: MOSTLY FREE And whats happening? Using the resources of its local TV news operations, the company launched a prime-time newscast, NewsNation Prime, in September on its cable outlet WGN America a nationally distributed network available in 75 million homes with plans to expand it to a full-time news service. Its channel position on cable and satellite systems is typically in the triple digits and not adjacent to other news networks, making it hard for viewers to find. In 2020, there was nothing hotter on TV than cable news. Mr. Finkelstein took a controlling stake in The Hill in 2014. As of 2019, KTLA is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which owns over 200 TV stations nationwide. We also rate them High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and reasonable fact-checking record. A 2020 deep . From a programming perspective, this regional strategy could be an opportunity to fulfill an acute need. According to Open Secrets, Nexstar Media group gave more money to Republicans in the 2018 election cycle (45% to Democrats, 55% to Republicans). Nexstar Media Group plans to launch a nationwide primetime news show called News Nation over its WGN America cable network tomorrow, a risky move under the best of circumstances let alone. KTLA.com is the associated website that publishes news and information pertaining to the Southern California region. This story is well sourced to local sources of information as well as KTLA TV video. Nexstar, a public company, became the nation's largest local TV operator in 2018, when it bought Tribune Media, the television arm of the Tribune Company, for $4.1 billion. When I asked Gary Weitman, Nexstars chief communication officer, whether Nexstars political activity presented a potential conflict of interest, he responded, The pac is there because Nexstar is in a regulated industry and there are a number of issues that its important to be heard on, and thats what the pac enables us to do. I dont see that as a conflict.. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Ad-Free Login Then, late last year, Nexstar finalized an acquisition of Tribune Media for $7.2 billion, a figure that, includes the assumption of Tribunes debt, The deal sealed the companys dominance over Sinclair, which had tried to purchase Tribune in 2018 but failed to get support from the FCC. It's a unique way of laying out the complex media landscape in two dimensions: news value and reliability, on the vertical axis, and bias, on the horizontal axis. As of July 2020, Nexstar Media Group owned 196 stations. We cant find advertisers that want to take advantage of it. Ad revenue for local TV companies has dropped as much as 40 percent since the beginning of the pandemic. What the FCC proceedings showed without a doubt, however, were the hard limits of a media conglomerates ability to truly serve the public interest. We and our partners use data for Personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. To that end, News Nation employs both conservative and liberal commentators, and provides its viewers with . Consistent with our commitment to deliver unbiased news to our viewers, NewsNation has hired a number of employees and consultants with diverse news production and reporting backgrounds from a variety of news organizations such as CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Fox Business, CBS, NBC and ABC. Butthe piece also included this soundbite from Bensman: Citation There aren't a whole ton of surprises here -- conservative talkers are on the far right, while most mainstream media outlets have a slightlyleft-of-center audience -- but there are a few interesting takeaways here: 1) The most-preferredmedia outlets of liberals, according to Pew's study, are the New Yorker and Slate. If you would like to change your settings or withdraw consent at any time, the link to do so is in our privacy policy accessible from our home page.. The simmering co When I asked Gary Weitman, whether Nexstars political activity presented a potential conflict of interest, he responded, The, Campaign organizers say Facebook boycott will continue, Coping with the inundation of news online, Emergency upon Emergency: How the press reacted to, A Matter of Necessity: Shefali Luthra covers abortion for, Anonymous Woman: Speaking with the press, an abortion fund worker faces an impossible dilemma, Everywhere and Nowhere: Notes from a parachuting national reporter on abortions local stories, Peer to Peer: News you can use, via Google Doc, The Poetics of Posting: A conversation with Mia Sato of, Sources on Sourcing: Six people weigh the risks and benefits of talking with the media, Out of Control: How a search for answers about reproductive health can lead you down a tunnel of misinformation. Analysis / Bias Broadcasters that control a large share of the market have an advantage when negotiating with cable companies and are able to raise their fees, which customers absorb through increased cable rates. Nexstar Media Group, the largest local television news company in the United States, recently released a piece on immigration that included an interview with Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) senior fellow Todd Bensman, who fearmongered that an open border policy would allow migrants to get into the United States and stay forever. The Nexstar segment cited Bensman as an expert on immigration with no reference to his history of spreading misinformation or the fact that the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies CIS as a hate group. Nexstar corporate officers suggested that its impossible to generalize about the stations or their programming. The sale comes after the news that German media company Axel Springer has held talks with two other news organizations based in Washington, Politico and Axios. In 2019, when Nexstar was seeking FCC permission to acquire Tribune, public interest groups including Common Cause filed a petition arguing that the merger would give Nexstar monopoly-like control, enabling it to keep raising retransmission fees. NewsNation still runs entertainment programming during the day, likely adding to consumer confusion. The site also launched an online morning show, Rising, in 2018, which succeeded by featuring right-wing and left-wing populist hosts. To no ones surprise, these false claims were widely discussed and debated on conservative-leaning news channels, including the Fox Business Network, One America News Network and Newsmax. KTLA was the first commercially licensed television station in thewestern United States. Like its slightly smaller rival, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Nexstar produces content that can be played on multiple stations across. Faced with the challenge of low viewership for its prime-time newscast, NewsNation has added talk shows to its lineup, a route taken by other cable news channels to get viewers to tune in when there is a lull in breaking stories. That dissent started after NewsNation acknowledged hiring William Bill Shine, a former White House official under former President Donald Trump who was tapped to provide consulting services to the news product. (In 2019, Sooks compensation was worth $16.4 million, while the median salary of Nexstars thirteen thousand employees was $43,537.). Despite Nexstars claims that its consolidation is helping high-quality local news flourish, its stations are essentially left to face the same market pressures as any other. The Latest Fact Checks curated by Media Bias Fact Check 03/01/2023, Daily Source Bias Check: Lozier Institute, The Latest Fact Checks curated by Media Bias Fact Check 02/28/2023, Daily Source Bias Check: Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, The Latest Fact Checks curated by Media Bias Fact Check 02/27/2023. Producers and writers with experience at Fox News, CNN and MSNBC came on board earlier this year to work on Donlons new program. It is this experience, as much as geography, that varies across the Nexstar Nation. Even Sinclair Broadcast Group, which had run into criticism for a conservative bent in local newscast commentary, is launching what it calls a fact-based morning headline news service early next year. Those distinctions, and Nexstars enormous reach across the country, make the company a unique bellwether of whether consolidation can be in the public interest. 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