David Smith, the chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group, says the media is getting his company all wrong.

His remark, in a lengthy email exchange with The New York Times, came in response to renewed scrutiny of Sinclair after a video spread rapidly showing anchors at dozens of its stations across the country reciting the same speech about media bias.

Smith defended the anchors’ segments, known as “must-runs,” and likened them to the late-night shows that networks air on their local affiliates. “Do you understand that every local TV station is required to ‘must run’ from its network their content, and they don’t own me,” he wrote Tuesday. “That would be all their news programming and other shows such as late-night talk, which is just late-night political so-called comedy.”

In the Sinclair-mandated segments, the anchors warned that some media outlets published fake stories. They also said they were “concerned about the troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news stories plaguing our country.”

The video was assembled by the sports news site Deadspin and posted Saturday. Soon after it went online, it triggered an outcry on social media and prompted many critics to denounce Sinclair’s practice of requiring its local television stations to air must-runs.

The company, already the country’s largest broadcaster, is set to expand its empire: Sinclair is waiting for regulators to approve its $3.9 billion deal for Tribune Media. The transaction, announced in May, would extend Sinclair’s reach into 7 in 10 American homes, with more than 200 stations in cities big and small.

Opponents of the deal have cited the dangers of media consolidation, as well as Sinclair’s willingness to use must-runs to advance a mostly right-leaning agenda.

In subsequent emails on Tuesday, Smith said that the networks “do exactly the same promotional things that we do” and that such segments were “standard practice in the industry.”

Asked about the widespread criticism prompted by the Deadspin compilation, Smith expressed disbelief. “You cant be serious!” he wrote. “Do you understand that as a practical matter every word that comes out of the mouths of network news people is scripted and approved by someone?”

Other must-runs Sinclair has required include commentary segments featuring Boris Epshteyn, a former spokesman for President Donald Trump, as well as a daily segment from a “Terrorism Alert Desk” with updates on terrorism-related news.