Sinclair-owned TV station claims a mistake was made for posting a picture of a Black Lives Matter leader making the insinuation that he was a bank robber suspect in a state thousands miles away from Maryland:
Screenshot of @KBOITV via @Yashar
A local TV news station owned by the rightwing Sinclair Broadcast Group shared a photo on social media of civil rights activist DeRay Mckesson along with an unrelated crime story about a bungled bank robbery that occurred thousands of miles away.
KBOI 2 News in Boise, ID, apologized Friday night for circulating the photo of Mckesson, a Black Lives Matter leader who serves as the director of human resources for Baltimores public school system (a position hes leaving at the end of this month).
We messed up. We mistakenly tweeted a photo of @deray with an unrelated story link about a bank robbery. We at KBOI are very sorry, the news station tweeted later.
The story, Would-be robber arrives early at banks to find doors locked, was put out by the Associated Press and actually occurred in Iowa, not Idaho, neither of which is near Maryland.
Mckesson responded by saying, I havent been anywhere near a bank robbery. FYI.
Sinclair Broadcast Group is a vile media company. After striking a nearly $4 billion deal with Tribune Media, it will become the largest owner of television stations across the U.S., Politico reported. The companys vice president and director, Frederick G. Smith, recently donated $1,000 to Montana Republican Rep. Greg Gianfortes campaign the day after Gianforte body slammed Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs for asking questions.
Worse than that, however, is Sinclairs penchant for producing bigoted, fake, rightwing news and commentary targeting the black and Latinx communities, and especially Muslims, and then requiring its affiliated local TV news stations to broadcast the mustrun segments.