Just two days after Donald Trump was elected to the White House for a second term, Perry Sook held an earnings call with Wall Street analysts.

As the founder of Nexstar Media, the former West Virginia news anchor, now 66, had risen to become one of the most powerful, if least known, moguls in broadcast television. His company owns local stations from Tampa to Burlington to Portland, Oregon (and KTLA in Los Angeles), in addition to cable-news outlet NewsNation, Congressional trade The Hill and a majority stake in The CW. On that November Thursday, Sook had a fervent wish for how the coverage of the second Trump administration would go. He hoped, he said, the country would soon be “eliminating the level of activist journalism out there.”

Just two days after Donald Trump was elected to th

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