Sinclair Broadcast Group: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Why HN readers recommended it

HN repeatedly points to it as the eye-opening explanation of media consolidation and scripted local news.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

LastWeekTonight

Topic

local tv media consolidation

Format

commentary

Level

general

HN recommenders in dataset

10

HN mentions in dataset

19

Recommendation years in dataset

2017–2026

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• John Oliver did a good bit on them on Last Week Tonight, including dozens of supposedly local news stations repeating the exact same Sinclair script verbatim. Highly recommend. [VIDEO]

• Speaking of news oulets. John Oliver had a rather eye opening piece about local news oulets in USA and centralized ownership. (Not that USA is unique in this aspect, but interesting non the less) [VIDEO]

• “Our democracy has been hacked.” is something that resonates with me very well. A select group of people have mastered media manipulation and are now acting as puppeteers while we are all in a state of confusion, no longer able to discern truth from disinformation. …