Maryland’s largest news outlets, owned by a wealthy conservative and vocal supporter of President Donald Trump is being accused of politically and racially targeting Governor Wes Moore and Baltimore City Mayor Brandon Scott, both of whom are Black.
The news outlets, owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, headquarted in Baltimore, have noticeably targeted Moore and Scott, from scrutinizing Governor’s Moore’s military and collegiate basketball records to Mayor Scott’s purchase of a new security fleet, and accusing the young mayor of hiring a gang member.
While some of the coverage from the local station WBFF/Fox 45 and The Baltimore Sun, a historic newspaper acquired by Sinclair in 2024, may appear fair game for journalism, both Moore and Scott see something more sinister at play.
“It’s actually a very sad day, because The Baltimore Sun used to be our paper of record. It’s now becoming a paper for the right-wing,” Moore said Tuesday on MS Now while discussing the newspaper now run by David D. Smith of the Sinclair Smith family, the executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group, the largest owner of local TV stations reaching 72% of American households.
Maryland’s first Black governor lamented the “decline” of The Baltimore Sun under its new leadership. Moore scoffed at Smith for “currying favor” with Trump and taking “what used to be a prized paper” and turning it into “right-wing tribble.”
Smith, a MAGA-aligned millionaire whose family is worth billions, told Trump in 2016 when he first ran for president, “We are here to deliver your message.” The Sinclair executive has used his outlets to platform right-wing issues, including parroting Trump’s “fake news” moniker for the media. He also doled out millions to fund ballot initiatives that his critics say were designed to undermine Baltimore city’s leadership by pushing term limits and recall elections.
“When you try to reduce the size of the City Council in a Black city with elected officials who are overwhelmingly Black, when you put term limits on the ballot in a city that’s overwhelmingly Black, when you attack the policies of things like CVI (Community Violence Interventions)…it’s very clear that they do not want to see free or liberated Black political power,” Mayor Brandon Scott tells theGrio.
Scott has publicly clashed with reporters working for Sinclair’s WBFF/Fox 45.
In September 2025, the 42-year-old Baltimore mayor—who has been insulted by conservatives as a “DEI mayor“—called out Fox 45 reporter Gary Collins for asking the mayor’s office if a worker with the city’s “Safe Streets” program was a member of the Crips because he wore a blue cap, the color associated with the street gang. Like his boss, Collins has direct ties to the Republican Party, having served as an officer for the Maryland GOP, a member of the Baltimore City Republican Party, and a 2020 delegate for the Republican National Convention.
During a press conference in January, Scott called out another Fox 45 reporter, Tessa Bentulan, for questioning the cost of his newly updated security fleet of SUVs, calling her line of questioning a “racist slant.”
Scott says Bentulan and her station omitted key details in their reporting of a 2025 Black Jeep Wagoneer that it said cost $163,000, telling theGrio, “What they don’t tell you is that we had two vehicles replaced.”
The popular two-term mayor also explained that while the Baltimore mayor’s office typically replaces vehicles every four years on average, his office waited 10 years before upgrading its fleet of vehicles.
“This is not a news organization, it’s a propaganda machine,” said Scott, who told theGrio, “Anybody who does not kowtow to [them]…they’re going to sprinkle racism on top of it.”
The mayor shared with theGrio that he met with Smith and other TV station executives when he first ran for office in 2020. The Sinclair owner requested that the then 36-year-old candidate turn over unredacted documents for an external audit. Scott said he refused to because of personal information. “He looked at me and said, ‘Well, you don’t believe in transparency, and we’re going to come after you every day,’” the mayor recalled.
Reecie Colbert, a political commentator, radio host and Maryland resident, says Mayor Scott and Governor Moore are “absolutely” being politically and racially targeted by Sinclair and David Smith.
“MAGA obviously does not want Democrats in control, but they especially don’t want Black leaders in control. And what they see is that Governor Moore and Mayor Scott have delivered results that nobody thought that they would be able to deliver,” Colbert tells theGrio.
Moore and Scott, who have developed a close relationship as Maryland’s top elected officials, have taken pride in the historic drop in crime rates in Baltimore and across the state. The leaders have credited the crime reduction to their policies, like targeted investments in community violence intervention programs.
Colbert believes Sinclair Broadcast is especially trying to “kneecap” Governor Moore’s rumored presidential prospects in 2028, adding, “even though he said he’s not going to run.”
“This is what MAGA does. They play the long game. They are relentless at making sure that they shape the narrative. And unfortunately, we see that very often it’s quite successful,” she tells theGrio.
Since a 2024 New York Times article uncovered that Moore’s claim to have received a Bronze Star for his U.S. Army service in Afghanistan was inaccurate–something Moore repeatedly explained as “an honest mistake”—The Baltimore Sun has continued to investigate the Maryland governor’s military background. According to a recent report by Semafor, David Smith has been keeping close tabs on the work of the Baltimore Sun’s team of investigative reporters. The outlet reported that correspondences with Moore’s office seeking documents and information were “laden with contempt, and at points directly threatened Moore with military disciplinary action.”
During his interview with MS Now, Governor Moore said he was “deeply proud of my military service,” adding, “The United States Army doesn’t question my integrity. The soldiers I serve with don’t question my integrity.”
Moore accused Smith of “using his wealth” to “manipulate” local media, and warned, “I do think it’s an important warning shot for the rest of the country as well.”
A senior advisor for Wes Moore said in a statement provided to theGrio, “What we are seeing in Maryland is part of the same broader story playing out across the country: a smaller and smaller number of ultra-wealthy, right-wing media owners using their platforms to put their fingers on the scale and protect their power while hiding behind the credibility of legacy institutions.”
The advisor added, “This right wing propaganda machine is coming for anyone who is a threat to their power. Fox News does it every day at the national level. David Smith tests it in Maryland and weaponizes the same model through his broader footprint across the country. This is bad and it’s one of the many hurdles public officials and political campaigns have to confront when communicating with the public.”
Though his company has made great efforts to scrutinize Democrats, whether fairly or not, Smith has quite the past himself and used his media power to skirt accountability. According to a report from—ironically—The Baltimore Sun decades before its Sinclair takeover, David Smith was arrested in 1996 for soliciting a prostitute, who, according to police, performed “an unnatural and perverted sex act on him.” Smith was charged with a misdemeanor sex offense, but cut an unusual deal; instead of doing community service, he ordered Sinclair to broadcast reports publicizing local drug programs.
The outsized influence of Smith’s media conglomerate says a lot about the state of politics and who is driving influence. And after years of conservatives complaining that the media was biased and largely influenced by powerful liberals, that narrative has since been turned on its head as Democrats now fret over the conservative takeover of traditional media like CBS and The Washington Post.
“It’s called finding a solution, which is what Democrats need to do,” said Colbert, the political commentator, who is the host of Sirius XM’s “The Reecie Colbert Show.”
“If you feel the media is biased against you, go buy the media. That’s what Republicans do. They’ve invested in an information infrastructure—it just so happens to be disinformation—in a way that Democrats have not,” she explained. “Democrats are still relying on organic media, and they think that their grand solution is to cultivate a handful of influencers.”
Colbert added, “The reality is that as long as Democrats do not take steps to have their own infrastructure that rivals Republicans, they’re always going to be on defense and they’re not going to be anywhere near successful at getting their information out.”
