Sinclair Broadcast Group took an aggressive step in defending itself against criticism stemming from the "fake news" promo it required anchors to read.

On Tuesday, banners appeared across the websites for Sinclair-owned-or-operated stations linking to a YouTube video attacking CNN media reporter Brian Stelter, a frequent critic of the conservative media giant.

RELATED: Sinclair airs, undermines ad critical of 'fake news' scripts

The video compares and contrasts Stelter's warnings about "fake news" with the script it thrust upon anchors in segments that began airing last month that warned of "one-sided news stories plaguing our country."

"It's just so tone deaf and another unforced error," a KOMO newsroom staffer told SeattlePI on the condition of anonymity. "Why try to re-litigate it and keep in the headlines?"

Sinclair CEO Christopher Ripley sent a letter to stations Tuesday morning, acknowledging that for many employees, "this past week has been challenging as the stations bore the brunt of politically motivated attacks regarding our news promotions."

"As you know, the practice of on-air personalities following a script is not unique to Sinclair, however, the blowback we received for doing so certainly is," Ripley wrote. "For having to field nasty calls, threats, personal confrontations and trolling on social media, I am truly sorry you had to endure such an experience. However, as an organization it is important that we do not let extremists on any side of the political fence bully us because they do not like what they hear or see."

You can watch the entire video below:

What Sinclair failed to mention in the video is that while it's Stelter's job to report on media stories, and therefore the "fake news" phenomenon that surfaced during the 2016 presidential election, Maryland-based Sinclair required its trusted local anchors read its message.

Sinclair also has a well established practice of airing right-leaning commentary designed to look like news stories. It requires stations to run segments from Boris Epshteyn, a Russian-born former Trump adviser who now serves as Sinclair's chief political analyst. Epshteyn recently produced stories with titles like, "Pres. Trump deserves cabinet and staff who support his agenda, yield successes" and "Cable news channels are giving way too much coverage to Stormy Daniels."

RELATED: KOMO attacks 'biased and false news' in Sinclair-written promos

Ahead of the 2016 election, the company cut a deal with the Trump campaign that earned its reporters access in return for commentary-free airings of Trump interviews. Sinclair was fined $13.3 million by the Federal Communications Commission in December for running over 1,700 commercials designed to look like news broadcasts without properly identifying them as paid content on its stations over a six-month period.

Over the weekend, Sinclair began airing an ad critical of the company's top-down directives on some of its stations, including Seattle's KOMO-TV, but only after sandwiching the message with disclaimers.

Seattlepi.com reporter Stephen Cohen can be reached at 206-448-8313 or stephencohen@seattlepi.com. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @scohenPI.