Gov. Wes Moore and Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller’s reelection campaign is out with its first TV ad of the cycle, airing on every Baltimore news station but one: Fox 45, Sinclair Broadcast Group’s flagship.
In D.C., the campaign purchased ads on some local stations but did not purchase one on WJLA, the Sinclair station there. All told, the governor’s campaign spent roughly $1 million to air its ad on stations across Maryland, according to records from the Federal Communications Commission.
Political advertising is a revenue windfall for TV stations in an election year, but the Moore campaign’s decision to leave Sinclair in the cold is the latest in what has become a prolonged feud between Maryland’s governor and David Smith, Sinclair’s executive chairman and owner of The Baltimore Sun. Sinclair, long associated with amplifying conservative messaging, has recently accused Moore’s office of violating its press freedoms.
While it’s normal for politicians and journalists to disagree on coverage in private, this dispute — which has been the subject of stories, back-and-forths on social media, and even a fundraising effort on Moore’s behalf — has played out in full view of the public.
“The Moore-Miller for Maryland campaign reserves the right to communicate with Marylanders through whatever means we deem appropriate, and we will continue to heavily utilize our local options throughout the state to communicate directly with Maryland families,” said Carter Elliott IV, a campaign spokesperson.
For months, Smith’s media properties published stories and aired segments scrutinizing Moore’s biography and record, with special focus on claims that he misrepresented his time in the Army to further his political career and benefited from special treatment. Moore, his wife Dawn and his political allies called the coverage biased and politically motivated.
In July, Smith sued Moore for defamation over comments the governor made on TV the month before, which sought to link the media mogul to Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced New York financier who was charged with sex trafficking of underage girls. In the June 16 MS NOW interview, Moore, a Democrat, said Smith “was invested in by Jeffrey Epstein.” Records from the Department of Justice show Epstein held Sinclair stock, but there’s no information to suggest Epstein and Smith had a relationship.
An attorney for Smith did not respond to a request for comment.
Later, in August, the Moore administration began a policy of slow-walking responses to inquiries from Smith’s outlets, writing in emails that their responses would be held until the governor’s legal team could review them, citing Smith’s lawsuit as the reason.
Some press freedom advocates have criticized this move, as some Sinclair journalists have sought to cast it as a blanket refusal to respond to their inquiries. The governor’s office disputed that. On Tuesday, press secretary Ammar Moussa wrote in a statement that state agencies and the governor’s office had “answered dozens of questions from Sinclair outlets” in the last week alone.
Moore is not the first Maryland politician to fight with Smith’s media properties. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott regularly tangles with Fox 45 reporters, often turning his interactions into viral moments. State Del. Marlon Amprey, a Baltimore Democrat, said the frustration with Sinclair-affiliated outlets is because of a perception that the content is published in an effort to assail some politicians’ personal character rather than to evaluate their policies.
“With this Black leadership in the city and state, it seems as though there’s no benefit of the doubt,” Amprey said.
The tone those outlets take in their coverage is at odds with how Scott and Moore are perceived throughout the country, Amprey said.
“When I tell folks I’m from Baltimore it is celebrated,” Amprey said. “It’s ‘Oh, you have a great mayor, you have a great governor.’”
The absence of Moore ads on Sinclair-owned stations is unlikely to factor in the race, said Sarah Oates, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism. Polling shows Moore well ahead of his Republican opponent, Dan Cox.
“He has such a comfortable lead in such a blue state that he has the luxury of not needing to engage with that particular outlet,” Oates said. “And you can make the argument that Sinclair has shown itself not to be in the interest of informing the public. Sinclair has shown itself in being in the interest of promoting the Republican cause.”
While many consumers are disillusioned with news organizations generally — one survey found that 56% of adults lack trust in national news outlets, and trust is higher in local outlets — Oates cautioned against equating the biases of Sinclair with those perceived in mainstream outlets like CNN or MS NOW.
She pointed to Smith’s previous statements about wanting to help President Donald Trump spread his message and the directives Sinclair stations receive to read certain scripts or promote certain stories that benefit Republicans.
“This is a pretty extreme case of a media outlet with an owner who clearly has a political mission and politicians who feel like they don’t have to treat that media outlet as an outlet because they see it as a PR campaign for the owner,” Oates said.
Comments
Welcome to The Banner's subscriber-only commenting community. Please review our community guidelines.