Before ink is dry on record FCC penalty check, Sinclair runs full-hour in-kind ad for mayoral candidate

The station hosted a more than hourlong online “conversation” with Vignarajah alone Thursday night,

with anchor Mary Bubala noting at the beginning of the livestreamed program that they had hoped to be joined by Miller, Dixon and Scott. The station did not invite former Baltimore Police spokesman T.J. Smith and Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young because they require candidates to release five years of tax returns to qualify for these debates.

THE IRONY, IT BURNS

In her letter to the station, Miller’s campaign manager, Ann Beegle, noted that several people affiliated with Sinclair, a conservative-leaning Hunt Valley-based company, have made large financial contributions to Vignarajah’s mayoral campaign.

Baltimore mayoral debate on Fox 45 becomes forum for just one candidate, Thiru Vignarajah, after others decline invitation

What was originally billed by Baltimore’s Sinclair Broadcast Group affiliate as a debate among Democratic mayoral candidates instead became a roughly hourlong conversation with only one contender — former Deputy Attorney General Thiru Vignarajah — af…

^{www.baltimoresun.com}