Sinclair boss defends having local news anchors read scripted statements: “You cant be serious!”

The New York Times

“Do you understand that as a practical matter every word that comes out of the mouths of network news people is scripted and approved by someone?” said David D. Smith, chairman of the Sinclair Broadcast Group, in a lengthy email to The New York Times. He added: "Not that you would print it, but do you understand that every local TV station is required to ‘must run’ from its network their content, and they don’t own me. That would be all their news programming and other shows such as late-night talk, which is just late-night political so-called comedy.”