Washington Post Has Questions For Sinclair and Sharyl Attkisson

I know this is, like, so last week, but in case you missed it, FTVLive reported that former CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson is shifting over to Sinclair on a freelance basis. FTVLive calls it a "match made in heaven":

Attkisson left CBS News after she said that the network kept spiking her stories. She has shown that her leanings are very conservative and will fit in perfectly with Sinclair, which leans the same way. 

Attkisson's reportage is to debut on the Sinclair stations this month, according to a memo from VP of news Scott Livingston, who says:

Sharyl will focus on stories that follow the money and waste watch type of investigations. I have admired her determination and desire to track the truth. As you know, she resigned from CBS News due to frustration over the network's perceived bias and lack of support for investigative reporting. She will be a great fit with our commitment to holding public officials accountable and being a viewer advocate.

The Washington Post's Erik Wemple has a few questions for Sinclair on its new hire. One is:

Will Sinclair fight Attkisson’s fights? After resigning from CBS News earlier this year, Attkisson filled the airwaves with often-vague complaints about how CBS News couldn’t be relied upon to publish her bold investigative stories. “With various stories, you do get the idea at some point that they want you to stop, especially if you start to dig down right into something very, very important, and it’s not just with political stories — it’s with stories that go after other interests, corporations, different things,” she said on a radio program. In a recent C-SPAN interview, Attkisson said that her CBS News bosses declined to engage in lawsuits to pry loose documents on Benghazi and Obamacare. So, will Sinclair meet her demands?

Another is:

Will Sinclair air all the material that CBS News allegedly killed? Given Attkisson’s tales of frustration at CBS News, she would appear to have a load of perhaps explosive stories that her bosses lacked the courage to put before the public. Since leaving her former employer, Attkisson has done some work for the Daily Signal, the news organ of the Heritage Foundation. Here’s hoping that Sinclair will clear out Attkisson’s backlog. We’ll be watching.

We will too.

Michael Malone

Michael Malone, senior content producer at B+C/Multichannel News, covers network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television. He hosts the podcasts Busted Pilot, about what’s new in television, and Series Business, a chat with the creator of a new program, and writes the column “The Watchman.” He joined B+C in 2005. His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Playboy and New York magazine.