An Outpost reader sent us the following screenshot last week, shortly after a New York jury found former President Donald Trump guilty of 34 felonies he committed as part of a “hush money” scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election:

That’s kind of odd, right? For a local TV news station to “Love” react to such a blatantly religious and partisan post? (The Del Norte Republicans Facebook page has since deleted the post after commenters objected to the Christ-Trump comparison, but the Outpost confirmed that North Coast News “Loved” that thing.)

As it turns out, whomever is managing the station’s social media account has a history of “Love” tapping right-wing religious content, including anti-LGBTQ posts from one particularly divisive Ferndale pastor.

###

###

Perhaps it’s a bit less surprising once you learn that North Coast News, the local ABC affiliate broadcasting as KAEF in Eureka, is among the whopping 193 TV news stations owned or operated by Sinclair Broadcast Group, a media conglomerate known for its overtly conservative political tilt. 

KAEF’s Redding-based sister station KRCR, aka “the Northstate’s News,” is also Sinclair-owned. The local affiliates have produced some award-winning reporters and popular TV news personalities over the years, including Nazy Javid, who’s now an anchor over in Redding. 

But as PBS NewsHour reported a few years back, Sinclair often mandates that every single one of its stations run its “clearly conservative editorials and features” verbatim.

North Coast News did not respond to emails seeking comment on its social media activity. We’ll update this post if we hear back. 

In the meantime, here’s a 2018 montage displaying the kind of lockstep messaging broadcast by Sinclair-owned stations across the country.