• Eldritch@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    They might. I recently was thinking about how friends and family in other states had gotten roped back into this. And then it occurred to me. Despite living in a red state. Our area has been blessed with having none of the local news stations owned by Sinclair. Don’t get me wrong. The local news is still not very good. But Sinclair is absolute propaganda. Completely toxic.

    But realizing that made the reality disconnects make sense. Many of them live in areas where there isn’t a local newscast not owned by Sinclair. Plenty of them don’t watch fox news or any cable news. And don’t engage with news online at all. Just the traditional local broadcast news. But like frogs in a slow pot. They haven’t really realized the propaganda boiling around them yet.

    But realizing that has given a vector of attack. They don’t like what other major media companies like clear channel have done to radio. Sinclair and clear channel are very similar in many ways. And just planting the concept has had some small success. Many of them are conspiracy minded. So appealing to that mindset with actual, much less fantastical conspiracy can resonate with them.

    Combine that with analysis from people who are independent subject matter experts. For instance the legal eagle YouTube channel has done a good job covering a lot of recent events from a factual/legal perspective. I think sharing some of their videos along with pounding the Sinclair conspiracy. Has definitely had an impact. And made them a bit less likely to just take what Sinclair has been feeding them at face value like they have in the past. But it’s a constant battle. And we can’t let up. But I think pushing back against Sinclair specifically might be a good way for us to start reaching a lot of these people.

    • anon593839@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 days ago

      There’s actually a part of me that finds this heartening. This guy is completely and utterly ignorant, but he’s not a cultist.