Concerns of 'propaganda' spark protest outside WJAR

By Thomas Greenberg
Posted 10/25/17

By THOMAS GREENBERG The national concern regarding biased and unfair news reporting has hit locally here in Cranston. Over 50 men and women associated with the Kent County Huddle took to the corner of Pontiac Avenue and Kelley Drive on Monday morning in

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Concerns of 'propaganda' spark protest outside WJAR

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The national concern regarding biased and unfair news reporting has hit locally here in Cranston.

Over 50 men and women associated with the Kent County Huddle took to the corner of Pontiac Avenue and Kelley Drive on Monday morning in protest of NBC 10’s (WJAR) parent company, Sinclair Broadcast group.

The Kent County Huddle is a women’s group that began after the women’s march in Washington this past January. They say that Sinclair is wrongly forcing their stations around the country, including NBC 10 in Rhode Island, to show national, pro-Trump shows during high-viewing times.

“It’s propagandistic,” said spokeswoman Dr. Patricia Ricci. “The shows are either Trump propaganda or they come from former spokespeople for Donald Trump. This was something that we felt was a threat to our community, to our nation, to the integrity of broadcasting and to journalism.”

Constance Mussells, another spokesperson for the group, said that their main concern was with what local news should be utilized as for a community.

“We should all expect our news to be unbiased,” she said. “The actual news that comes to us should be news and not somebody’s opinions disguised as news.”

Risa Gutman-Kornwitz, another member of the Huddle, added: “They look like they’re news reports but they’re not. Unfortunately Channel 10 is showing them all over the country. You have all these newscasters pretending that they’re just being nonchalant about reading the news, but they’re force-fed.”

Because of these accusations against Sinclair and concerns with what’s being shown on Channel 10, members of the group took to the streets outside of WJAR in Cranston to not only urge people to stop watching NBC 10, as many of them already have, but to also boycott businesses that advertise with WJAR.

Members, including Mussells and Marcia Hutchings, said they’ve reached out to both Sinclair and WJAR, but haven’t gotten through to anyone.

Mussells admitted that the protest was more against Sinclair than WJAR itself, saying that she didn’t think WJAR has a choice in the matter, but nevertheless “it’s up to us citizens to draw attention to that.”

“I was quite pleased with the protest,” she said after.

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