The meaning of 'fake'

Sinclair Broadcast Group is the latest target of critics who fear that President Trump and his supporters want to turn TV news into a state propaganda tool. Outrage erupted in the opposition camp after Sinclair management ordered local news anchors to read a corporate-drafted statement decrying "the troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided new stories plaguing our country" and "the sharing of biased and false news [on] social media." While some observers note that the text reads at least superficially like an appeal for evenhanded objectivity, critics point to the words "fake" and "biased," which they see as code-words for criticism or investigation of the White House. Even though the Sinclair script goes on to say that "Truth is neither politically left nor right," critics believe that the Trumpian buzzwords belie the conglomerate's  pretense of objectivity.

Sinclair has struck back at the critics, citing some pro-Trump rumors and anti-Democrat conspiracy theories as examples of the "fake stories" they condemn.  Vice president Scott Livingston jumped on the "double standards" bandwagon to change the subject, finding it hypocritical of critics to protest Sinclair's employment of a former Trump advisor as a commentator carried on local broadcasts when they don't hold the past party ties of Chris Matthews and George Stephanopoulos against them.  This is changing the subject because the real cause for complaint right now is the script that anchors, regardless of political affiliation, are obliged to read. One can have nonpartisan reservations about that level of corporate interference with local news organizations. That looks like a reversion to the corporate dictation of the early 20th century, when powerful and mostly conservative newspaper tycoons dictated their papers' editorial policies, and I'm not aware of anything equivalent going on between the major TV  networks and their local affiliates -- a growing number of which are owned by Sinclair. Even if the corporation lives up to its objective pretensions, the mere fact that it claims a right to tell local anchors or reporters what to say should be disturbing to all Americans, regardless of party. If you don't want George Soros buying a bunch of Fox affiliates and making their news teams tell you, explicitly or implicitly, to ignore the Fox News Channel, then you should disapprove of what Sinclair is up to, no matter what the script says. The mere existence of a script is the real problem. If Republicans don't see that now they may regret it later.