Do you think there were a few spit takes over the morning coffee among members of a certain Smith family located in the Baltimore area, or among those who have one of the Smith’s signatures on the bottom of their regular paycheck? The headline, from the Associated Press, read "Sinclair pays 2.45M for air violations."
Sinclair is not at all known for indecent broadcasting (above and beyond that which is fed to it from the national networks, at any rate), but it has been known to play close to the edge in the opinions of some when it comes to politics. But it’s done nothing that would warrant this kind of hit from the FCC.
The answer is that it didn’t do anything. The Sinclair in question is Sinclair Oil Corporation, which was fined for fouling the air with emissions from three facilities located in Wyoming and Oklahoma, and it was the EPA, not the FCC, levying the fine. It was not a broadcast matter at all.
TVBR/RBR observation: If members of the Sinclair Broadcast Group organization missed this headline and are seeing it the first time, you may now take a retroactive sigh of relief.
