The Enlightenment of Max

The Enlightenment made explicit what had long been implicit in the intellectual life of Europe: the belief that rational inquiry leads to objective truth. Even those Enlightenment thinkers who distrusted reason…never relinquished their confidence in rational argument…For the ensuing 200 years, reason retained its position as the arbiter of truth and the foundation of objective knowledge…But reason is now on the retreat, both as an ideal and as a reality. - Roger Scruton, 1999

Sunday, January 29, 2006

More on the subject of media control

Has anyone heard of Sinclair Broadcast Group? Jono gave me an article from the December issue of GQ magazine that was all about Sinclair Broadcast Group, a family-controlled media company. SBG is the operator of the largest number of local television stations in the US, and they have been accused of fixing the news for the neo-cons.

I had never heard of Sinclair and I found the article shocking. I would like to give you more information from the article, but I left it with another friend in London. Instead I offer you Wikipedia's entry on SBG, which discusses the controversies of their packaged news, disallowing a Nightline broadcast, and forcing their stations to air a documentary that was critical of John Kerry just before the 2004 election, amongst other things. The Wikipedia entry also has a list of stations owned by Sinclair. Please have a look at it, I think you will find it enlightening.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcasting

Thanks, Jono.