David D. Smith

David Deniston Smith is an American businessman who has been the executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group (SBGI) since January 2017, having been its president and CEO from September 1990 to January 2017. In 2024, he acquired majority ownership of ''The Baltimore Sun'' (founded 1837) and its affiliated regional and community newspapers.

Early life

David Deniston Smith is the son of Julian Sinclair Smith (1921–1993), founder of Sinclair Broadcast Group, and Carolyn Beth Cunningham. He has three brothers—Frederick, J. Duncan and Robert. As a child he lived in the Bolton Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, and attended and graduated from The Baltimore City College (high school), graduating in 1969.

Career

From 1971 to 1978, Smith worked at WBFF-TV, Channel 45, which began operations in 1971 as the first commercial UHF television station in the city / media market (and run by his father), He first was in charge of maintenance operations. He devised a plan for "selling pornographic videos in Baltimore's red-light district during the 1970s." He founded Comark Communications in 1978.

In 1985, WBFF (then affiliated with Fox Broadcasting Company) was rebranded, with two other stations, as "Sinclair". David Smith served as the chief executive officer and president of Sinclair Television Group, Inc. from 1988 to January 2017. He "built Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. into the largest owner of television stations in the U.S.," and he was profiled by ''The New York Times'' in 1998. He has been executive chairman of SBGI since January 1, 2017. It has been reported that every news station under Sinclair's umbrella is required to syndicate commentary that comports with its owners' ideological views.

In September 2013, his shareholding in SBGI was valued at $268 million. His total calculated compensation was $5,206,439 as of fiscal year 2016.

In an August 1996 prostitution sting, Smith was charged with committing an "unnatural and perverted sex act" (oral sex) in a Sinclair company vehicle. He was sentenced to community service, which was fulfilled by having Sinclair station WBFF produce reports on a local drug counseling program.

Prior to Ajit Pai's appointment under the first Donald Trump presidential administration as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Smith met with Pai to discuss deregulation of the FCC's media ownership rules. This meeting, plus Sinclair having been granted additional access to Donald Trump's presidential campaign, resulted in accusations that Sinclair was currying favor with the Trump administration in exchange for deregulation of the industry. Smith met with Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election year, in which he told Trump, "We are here to deliver your message."

In January 2024, he reached a private agreement to buy ''The Baltimore Sun'' from the venture capital group Alden Global Capital, who had also just recently purchased the media properties from Tribune Publishing (longtime national media syndicate founded by the ''Chicago Tribune'') then emerging from bankruptcy and a long period of financial instability. He is also the owner of other Baltimore-area news publications, like Capital Gazette papers in Annapolis, ''Carroll County Times'', ''The Howard County Times'', '' Towson Times'' and several other Baltimore-area weeklies and magazines. Since his acquisiton of the newspaper, the ''Baltimore Sun''s coverage has become more conservative and focused more on Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott and his administration, as well as the issue of crime in Baltimore. The paper also started republishing content from WBFF-TV and conservative news wire The Center Square, as well as publishing columns written by Smith's daughter and features promoting restaurants owned by Atlas Restaurants Group, which is owned by Smith's nephew, prompting criticism from the Baltimore Sun Guild. Many of the ''Baltimore Sun''s journalists, including several with the Baltimore Sun Guild, have left the company as a result of changes made under by Smith and conservative columnist Armstrong Williams in the year following their acquisition of the newspaper. The Baltimore Sun Guild also accused the new owners of stalling contract negotiations with the paper's unionized reporters; Smith denied these accusations, telling ''Sun'' photographer Amy Davis that he had multiple union employees across the country and that he'd been negotiating with unions for fifty years, despite employee testimony that Smith threatened to shut down WBFF-TV after its employees started talking about forming a union.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, David D.
1950 births
Living people
People from Baltimore County, Maryland
Businesspeople from Maryland
American television executives