The Baltimore Sun Is In Trouble
On the Media
WNYC Studios
4.6 • 8.7K Ratings
🗓️ 12 March 2025
⏱️ 19 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | This is the On the Media Midweek podcast. I'm Brooke Gladstone. Just over a year ago, we reported on the purchase of the Baltimore Sun by David Smith, the executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group. |
| 0:14.3 | David Smith is known not only for his right-wing broadcasting network Sinclair, but also for his support of conservative causes and groups, |
| 0:21.7 | including Project Veritas, Turning Points USA, and Moms for Liberty. |
| 0:26.6 | Joshua Benton of Neiman Lab described the sale at the time as, quote, |
| 0:31.0 | an exploration of whether there can be a worse newspaper owner than Alden Global Capital. |
| 0:40.0 | When Smith met with the Sun's staff after the acquisition was complete, he told reporters to, quote, go make me some money. Turns out |
| 0:46.2 | that's not particularly motivational. New numbers out this month show that the Sun's readership |
| 0:52.3 | is way down. Circulation of the Sunday paper declined by |
| 0:56.2 | about 44% and daily readership fell to by about 37%. Meanwhile, website traffic has cratered and at least |
| 1:05.8 | 20 journalists have left the paper. On the occasion of these bad numbers, we'll revisit a couple |
| 1:12.8 | of illuminating conversations we had last January with two Baltimore natives. The first is Milton |
| 1:19.7 | Kent, Professor of Practice in the School of Global Journalism and Communication at Morgan State |
| 1:25.4 | University. John Oliver did a spectacular take down a few years ago of how the word sort of came down from |
| 1:33.3 | Sinclair headquarters, which is here in the Baltimore suburbs. The word came down that they wanted an editorial |
| 1:39.3 | to be read verbatim on each of its stations across the country. |
| 1:44.5 | Sinclair can sometimes dictate the content of your local newscast, and in contrast to Fox News, |
| 1:49.8 | a clearly conservative outlet where you basically know what you're getting, with Sinclair, |
| 1:54.8 | they are injecting Foxworthy content into the mouths of your local news anchors. |
| 1:59.6 | Did the FBI have a personal vendetta in pursuing the Russia investigation of President Trump's |
| 2:05.8 | former national security advisor Michael Flynn? |
| 2:08.3 | Did the FBI have a personal vendetta in pursuing the Russia investigation of President Trump's |
| 2:13.0 | former national security advisor Michael Flynn? |
... |
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