Once again, local station WTOV Steubenville conformed to Sinclair Broadcasting’s rightwing bias by airing a Sinclair-scripted segment on President Biden's supposed mental decline. Earlier today, investigative reporters Judd Legum and Aaron Rupar documented here how Sinclair’s local stations were required to run the same news segment -- a story based upon a biased Wall Street Journal article that attacked Biden’s age and fitness for office:

1. @WSJ & @WeAreSinclair, both controlled by right-wing tycoons, are pushing specious claims about Biden's fitness for office to millions@WSJ produced a flawed piece questioning Biden's mental fitness@WeAreSinclair injected the story into local news, forcing dozens of anchors… pic.twitter.com/5FOtQeTtXn

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) June 11, 2024

(If you are looking for WTOV’s contribution, it begins around the 3:39 point.)

In the article, Legum and Rupar point out the problems with the WSJ article:

The Wall Street Journal article, headlined “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping,” boasts that it is based on "interviews with more than 45 people over several months." But only one person is quoted on the record supporting the thesis of the piece: Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). “I used to meet with him when he was vice president. I’d go to his house,” McCarthy told the Wall Street Journal. “He’s not the same person.”

Relying on McCarthy as the lynchpin of the article is problematic. First, McCarthy is not a neutral observer. He is a partisan Republican interested in inflicting political damage on Biden. Further, what McCarthy told the Wall Street Journal about Biden is directly contradicted by comments that McCarthy said previously — both publicly and privately.

The authors cite McCarthy's earlier contradicting points and then note:

The rest of the piece is based on anonymous Republican criticism of Biden.

This was clearly a hit piece by the Journal and now the Trump-supporting Sinclair network is using it to attack Biden.

Has anybody ever seen a WTOV segment dealing with Trump’s mental acuity? I have not and it is not because they are hard to find. For example, here are a couple of Trump clips from recent rallies. On sharks:

Trump: It must be because of my relationship with M.I.T., very smart, I say, what would happen if the boat sank, and you have this tremendously powerful battery, and the battery is now underwater…. Do I get electrocuted or do I jump over by the shark? pic.twitter.com/zAUkDoOBD3

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 9, 2024

And Hannibal Lecter:

Trump: Silence of the lamb! The late great Hannibal Lecter. It is a wonderful man. pic.twitter.com/edG9oCH933

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 11, 2024

Note: this was not Trump’s first mention of Lecter:

Trump on Hannibal Lecter: You know why I like him? Because he said on television “I love Donald Trump” so I love him pic.twitter.com/1jYyXKFkjI

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 7, 2023

(Does Trump think Lecter was a real person?)

Has WTOV ever shown these or similar clips that might lead a viewer to question Trump’s mental state? I don’t think so. Nor has channel 9 spent much time on Trump’s felony counts and his convictions. Hey, but watch tonight for WTOV’s coverage of today’s Hunter Biden trial. I don’t have the statistics, but I would be willing to make a small wager that WTOV has spent more total time covering Hunter Biden’s legal woes than the sum total of all of Trump's trials put together. (And I would guess that would be true of most Sinclair stations.)

The excellent Legum/Rupar article cites a study that viewers trust their local news stations much more than national networks. I think that study is correct. If so, this may partially explain why Trump’s popular support has declined so little despite his convictions and his widely publicized statements threatening democracy and the American system of justice. Critics (and bloggers, myself included) spend a lot of time criticizing Fox News and similar conservative national news outlets when the larger threat to democracy is more likely local in the form of ownership like Sinclair, Ogden Newspapers*, and similar never-questioning-Trump outlets that make up most of the media mix in many local markets.

Yes, I believe this is a threat to our democracy.

*Here is yesterday’s political cartoon in the Wheeling Intelligencer:

Has either local Ogden newspaper ever questioned Trump’s mental state or more importantly, his attacks upon our democratic institutions? Not that I am aware.