Kristine Frazao – SBGI News Correspondent
On Friday, March 28, the NBC affiliate in Reno, Nevada (KRNV) again aired a Fox News type report on the 6:00 PM telecast, and this time actually used a Fox News clip. During the ‘A’ Block (top stories,) local news anchor Joe Hart gravely announces:
“….National Correspondent Kristine Frazao reports, some are concerned that this could be a sign of things to come in our country….”
The news clip, manufactured by Sinclair Broadcast Group (SBGI,) which operates KRNV, features Kristine Frazao, who has three years national experience with Russian Television (RT,) and was hired in the past year by Sinclair. She tells the story of a Washington D.C. resident who violated local laws on ammunition ownership, and who had his ex-spouse tattle on him to law enforcement.
Convicted Mark Witaschek interview on Fox News and shown on Reno NBC affiliate (From KRNV newscast)
The clip starts with Mark Witaschek, explaining his surprise that he had committed a crime. The graphic with his name on-screen is a Fox News logo and banner, indicating the original source of the story. Frazao did not include an interview or statement from the law enforcement agency involved, nor does she offer any other examples of people charged or convicted of the law that Witaschek violated.
Instead Frazao interviews Emily J. Miller of the The Washington Times; who declares that Witaschek is a law-abiding citizen even though he has been convicted of violating the law in Washington D.C.:
“It’s just an outrageous violation of his rights.”
Miller continues and links this one case to a larger conspiracy without any proof:
“This is a pattern in Washington D.C. and states that are anti-gun, which is to go after the law-abiding who are exercising their Second Amendment Rights….”
Miller, is a Senior Editor for The Washington Times, which has an interesting history and has a strong conservative bias.
Founded by the Unification Church in 1982, The Washington Times was once lauded by Ronald Reagan as the only newspaper that told the truth to the American people. In 2002, Church Founder, Sun Myung Moon stated:
“The Washington Times is responsible to let the American people know about God” and “The Washington Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world.”
In March of 2013, the Herring Broadcasting announced that it would team with Miller’s Washington Times newspaper to create One America News, a conservative cable news network to rival Fox News.
Frazao’s uses a source that is as biased as asking a Boston Red Sox fan to discuss the negative aspects of the New York Yankees. By using Miller as her primary source, Frazao betrayed any aspect of responsible investigative journalism.
The final 41 seconds of the news clip, which may or may not have been part of KRNV’s live broadcast¹, does include Emily Tisch Sussman, Campaign Director for the Center for American Progress. Sussman represents a liberal viewpoint; however, during that 41 seconds she is edited down to two sound bytes of four seconds and ten seconds. The rest of the time Frazao speaks for her in a voice over. Of the two sound bytes, it was difficult to determine what questions Sussman was responding to because the editing didn’t seem to match Frazao’s edited-in commentary.
This was at least the second time in one week where Sinclair Broadcast Group’s National Correspondent has presented a story that had an overt conservative bias (See article.)
NEXT: KRNV does it again. (Read article) TO BE PUBLISHED 7 APRIL 2014 at 6:00 AM
(¹I watched the live broadcast and I don’t remember the last 41 seconds that appears in the on-line clip of the ‘A’ Block. If it was included it would have put the broadcast 34 to 65 seconds longer than the two previous night’s broadcast, and 94 seconds longer than the next two weekday 6 PM broadcasts. At 41 seconds, Kristine Frazao seems to wrap up the piece, and the next 41 seconds could have easily been edited out for time on the original live broadcast.)
