Sinclair Group to Force-Feed Anti-Kerry Doc

[Rspaight]

Good ol' liberal media.

Conservative TV Group to Air Anti-Kerry Film

Sinclair, with reach into many of the nation's homes, will preempt prime-time shows. Experts call the move highly unusual.

By Elizabeth Jensen, Times Staff Writer

NEW YORK — The conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group, whose television outlets reach nearly a quarter of the nation's homes with TV, is ordering its stations to preempt regular programming just days before the Nov. 2 election to air a film that attacks Sen. John F. Kerry's activism against the Vietnam War, network and station executives familiar with the plan said Friday.

Sinclair's programming plan, communicated to executives in recent days and coming in the thick of a close and intense presidential race, is highly unusual even in a political season that has been marked by media controversies.

Sinclair has told its stations — many of them in political swing states such as Ohio and Florida — to air "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," sources said. The film, funded by Pennsylvania veterans and produced by a veteran and former Washington Times reporter, features former POWs accusing Kerry — a decorated Navy veteran turned war protester — of worsening their ordeal by prolonging the war. Sinclair will preempt regular prime-time programming from the networks to show the film, which may be classified as news programming, according to TV executives familiar with the plan.

Executives at Sinclair did not return calls seeking comment, but the Kerry campaign accused the company of pressuring its stations to influence the political process.

"It's not the American way for powerful corporations to strong-arm local broadcasters to air lies promoting a political agenda," said David Wade, a spokesman for the Democratic nominee's campaign. "It's beyond yellow journalism; it's a smear bankrolled by Republican money, and I don't think Americans will stand for it."

Sinclair stations are spread throughout the country, in major markets that include Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Las Vegas; its only California station is in Sacramento. Fourteen of the 62 stations the company either owns or programs are in the key political swing states of Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where the presidential election is being closely fought.

Station and network sources said they have been told the Sinclair stations — which include affiliates of Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, as well as WB and UPN — will be preempting regular programming for one hour between Oct. 21 and Oct. 24, depending on the city. The airing of "Stolen Honor" will be followed by a panel discussion, which Kerry will be asked to join, thus potentially satisfying fairness regulations, the sources said.

Kerry campaign officials said they had been unaware of Sinclair's plans to air the film, and said Kerry had not received an invitation to appear.

No one familiar with the plan was willing to criticize it publicly, some because they said they don't know all the details of what Sinclair plans for the panel that follows. But a number of people privately expressed outrage at the seemingly overt nature of the political attack, which comes during a tight election and at a time when the media are under assault as never before. Cable's Fox News Channel was attacked in the summer by a coalition of liberal groups for what they said were its efforts to boost Republicans; in recent weeks, CBS' Dan Rather has been criticized by conservatives, as well as some nonpartisan journalists, for a "60 Minutes" broadcast that used now-discredited documents in a report saying President Bush received favorable treatment when in the Texas Air National Guard in the 1970s.

Democrats have for some time accused Sinclair, a publicly traded company based in Maryland, of a having a right-wing agenda.

The company made headlines in April when it ordered seven of its stations not to air Ted Koppel's "Nightline" roll call of military dead in Iraq, deeming it a political statement "disguised as news content." Sen. John McCain, the Republican from Arizona who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, was among those who criticized Sinclair's decision not to air the "Nightline" program, which featured the names and pictures of more than 700 U.S. troops.

Even before the "Nightline" controversy, Sinclair drew criticism because of the combination of its highly centralized news operations, which often include conservative commentary, and its almost exclusively Republican political giving. In the 2004 political cycle, Sinclair executives have given nearly $68,000 in political contributions, 97% to Republicans, ranking it 12th among top radio and TV station group contributors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign finance watchdog group.

The upcoming "Stolen Honor" will probably bring fresh attention to Sinclair. "I can't think of a precedent of holding up programming to show a political documentary at a point where it would have the maximum effect on the vote," said Jay Rosen, chairman of New York University's journalism department. But the program will only be the latest in a string of politically charged media events in this campaign. Representatives of Michael Moore's anti-Bush "Fahrenheit 9/11," which has grossed $214 million worldwide, are in talks for a deal to make the film available on pay-per-view cable the night before the election. The Sundance Channel plans to air live clips Monday from the anti-Bush "Vote for Change" rock concert.

Cable, however, doesn't have the reach of broadcast stations like Sinclair's, nor is it subject to the same federal regulations. Still, although broadcast stations are required to provide equal time to major candidates in an election campaign, the Sinclair move may not run afoul of those provisions if Kerry or a representative is offered time to respond. Moreover, several sources said Sinclair had told them it planned to classify the program as news, where the rules don't apply.

Calling it news, however, poses its own problems, said Keith Woods, dean of the faculty at the Poynter Institute, a journalism school in St. Petersburg, Fla., that teaches professional ethics. "To air a documentary intended to provide a one-sided view of Kerry's record and call it news — it's like calling Michael Moore's movie news," he said, adding that the closer to an election that a controversial news report is aired, the "higher the bar has to go" in terms of fairness.

Clearly, Sinclair's reach will bring a much wider audience to the film. The 42-minute film has only been available on DVD or for $4.99 through an Internet download, although fans had been mounting an Internet campaign to get it wider exposure.

"Stolen Honor" was made by Carlton Sherwood, a Vietnam veteran and former reporter for the conservative Washington Times who is also the author of a book about the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. On the website for the film, he tells viewers, "Intended or not, Lt. Kerry painted a depraved portrait of Vietnam veterans, literally creating the images of those who served in combat as deranged drug-addicted psychopaths, baby killers" that endured for 30 years in the popular culture.

Sherwood did not return calls seeking comment.

[lukpac]

The airing will also be commercial free.

[Rspaight]

Imagine -- just *imagine* if, say, CBS was going to broadcast Fahrenheit 9/11 a week before the election commercial-free as a *news* broadcast. Imagine the outcry from Fox, Hannity, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Blitzer, Russert, Woodruff, CNN, NewsMax, WorldNetDaily, Townhall, Scarborough, Savage, Coulter, Malkin, Thomas, Will, Buckley, Krauthammer, Drudge, and every Republican with access to a microphone in the country...

But the right can do this with barely a peep from anyone.

Face it. They *own* the media. Literally.

Ryan

[lukpac]

There is a link on Drudge, but I don't see any comentary.

Kerry is avoiding taxes, however:

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash2.htm

Middle Class Said To Pay Higher Tax Rate Than Heinz Kerry And Kerry
Mon Oct 11 2004 10:22:17 ET

Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, writes in the WALL STREET JOURNAL on Monday: "According to the Kerrys' own tax records, and they have not released all of them, the couple had a combined income of $6.8 million in income last year and paid $725,000 in income taxes. That means their effective tax rate was a whopping 12.8%.... "Under the current tax system the middle class pays far more than the Kerry tax rate. In fact, the average federal tax rate -- combined payroll and income tax -- for a middle-class family is closer to 20% or more. George W. and Laura Bush, who had an income one- tenth of the Kerrys', paid a tax rate of 30%. ...

"Here is the man who finds clever ways to reduce his own tax liability while voting for higher taxes on the middle class dozens of times in his Senate career. He even voted against the Bush tax cut that saves each middle-class family about $1,000." The Kerrys "have unwittingly made the case for what George W. Bush says he wants to do: radically simplify and flatten out the tax code. ... So before John Kerry is given the opportunity to raise taxes again on American workers, shouldn't he and Teresa at least pay their fair share?"

END

[Rspaight]

Um, isn't that Kerry's whole *point*? That taxes are too low on the rich and too high on the middle-class? It's completely hilarious that Drudge would try to make this an anti-Kerry issue.

Obviously, Kerry's better at his taxes than Bush. Bush didn't even realize he owned a timber company.

Ryan

[Patrick M]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases ... 006-9.html

He says the tax increase is only for the rich. You've heard that kind of rhetoric before. The rich hire lawyers and accountants for a reason -- to stick you with the tab. The Senator is not going to tax you because we're going to win in November. (Applause.)

[lukpac]

FCC won't prevent airing of anti-Kerry film, chairman says

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Communications Commission won't intervene to stop a broadcast company's plans to air a critical documentary about John Kerry's anti-Vietnam War activities on dozens of TV stations, the agency's chairman said Thursday.

"Don't look to us to block the airing of a program," Michael Powell told reporters. "I don't know of any precedent in which the commission could do that."

Eighteen senators, all Democrats, wrote to Powell this week and asked him to investigate Sinclair Broadcast Group's plan to run the program, "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," two weeks before the November 2 election.

Powell said there are no federal rules that would allow the agency to prevent the program. "I think that would be an absolute disservice to the First Amendment and I think it would be unconstitutional if we attempted to do so," he said.

He said he would consider the senators' concerns but added that they may not amount to a formal complaint, which could trigger an investigation. FCC rules require that a program air before a formal complaint can be considered.

Sinclair, based outside Baltimore, has asked its 62 television stations -- many of them in competitive states in the presidential election -- to pre-empt regular programming to run the documentary.

It chronicles Kerry's 1971 testimony before Congress and links him to activist and actress Jane Fonda. It includes interviews with Vietnam prisoners of war and their wives who claim Kerry's testimony demeaned them and led their captors to hold them longer.

In the letter to Powell, the senators -- led by Dianne Feinstein of California -- asked the FCC to determine whether the airing of the anti-Kerry program is a "proper use of public airwaves" and to investigate whether it would violate rules requiring equal air time for candidates.

Separately, the Democratic National Committee filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday contending that Sinclair's airing of the film should be considered an illegal in-kind contribution to President Bush's campaign.

[Matt]

Who Are The "Brainwashers"?
http://www.cnsnews.com/bozellcolumn/bozell.asp

by L. Brent Bozell III
October 19, 2004

The decision of Sinclair Broadcasting to air an anti-Kerry documentary in late October is a nightmarish recipe of "creeping fascism, state propaganda, Big Brother and brainwashing." So says the unhinged Molly Ivins, giving voice to the outrage felt by her colleagues in the news media.

Liberals are positively panicked at the idea that somewhere, on some station, at some late date, someone will say something negative about John Kerry without a moment for balance on the other side. Let’s be blunt: welcome to our world, liberals. You’re all for propaganda and brainwashing when it’s Dan, Peter, Tom & Co. are spinning wildly in your direction. In your world, a free press is defined as what happens when so-called "news" professionals sell liberalism relentlessly like a kitchen gizmo on a late-night infomercial.

Conservatives are used to seeing our leaders hounded and our ideas pounded without any quaint notions of balance or fairness on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, and so on. This does not occur on one night every four years. It happens on a daily, even hourly basis. TV news stars have foisted Microsoft forgeries on President Bush (CBS), framed his face next to the letters "I LIE" (NBC), and composed internal memos declaring that the Bush campaign is a cavalcade of liars and must be exposed as such (ABC).

For most of this year, these left-wing journalists have portrayed John Kerry’s war years as if he were a combination of Private Ryan, Sergeant York, and G.I. Joe. They have touted his "chestful of medals," and swooned over every replay of his military home movies (yes, the ones he vowed he’d never use for political gain). Those who remember him differently – as a man who went to battle to polish his political resume and then returned home to smear his comrades in the war effort as vandals, rapists, and murderers – are not to be defined as "newsworthy." Their views are sometimes questioned, usually condemned, parceled out in half-teaspoons of Swift Vet ad clips. They are never invited to sit for extended interviews with Ted Koppel or Dan Rather.

The film Sinclair has ordered its stations to air, "Stolen Honor," interviews Vietnam prisoners of war and their wives at length about the wounds they feel over Kerry’s infamous 1971 Senate testimony. It is a powerful film. It’s a devastating story. It’s no wonder the liberals want it blacklisted before it can be located on television.

But with all the one-sided boosterism of Kerry the war hero, we must ask: Is "Stolen Honor" a blatant offense against balance? Or can it qualify, at least in a few media markets, as a limited but razor-sharp contrast to the liberal media monoculture, as the arrival of balance? "Stolen Honor" critics ought to shut up, sit down, and watch before they condemn it.

For the latest example of the liberal media’s extreme revulsion to the views of anti-Kerry veterans, see ABC’s "Nightline" on October 14. In four previous shows on Kerry’s war history and Swift Boat veteran ads, Ted Koppel never granted an anti-Kerry veteran an extended interview. But this time, Koppel’s show did the incredible, traveling all the way to Vietnam and interviewing self-proclaimed soldiers for the communist regime, soliciting their viewpoint. In aiming to determine what happened on the day Kerry put in for his Silver Star medal, February 28, 1969, Koppel said these old enemies had "no particular ax to grind for or against John Kerry." The spokesmen for a regime that tortured and killed countless American POWs were more trustworthy than American POWs.

After a parade of unsubstantiated hearsay from these Vietnamese peasants, interviewed with an official minder from the communist regime standing around, Koppel sat down with an anti-Kerry veteran on live television for the first time this year. John O’Neill was so shocked by the audacity of ABC’s "news" judgment that he kept returning to the objection that Koppel had been used: "You’ve been had, Ted."

Koppel framed the show as a "chance to set the record straight" – against John O’Neill. Kerry’s G.I. Joe narrative must be upheld, even if it requires traveling around the world and looking up the "independent" Viet Cong to "confirm the essence" of the Kerry mythmakers.

How dare these partisan hacks at ABC and elsewhere sit pompously in their studios and condemn Sinclair! They have no gauntlet of objectivity to toss at anyone. They accuse others of trumped-up, slanted propaganda? In this Kerry-coddling campaign cycle, the pot has never been blacker before rebuking the kettle.

[Rspaight]

Thanks for the laugh, Matt. Bozell's a funny guy, isn't he?

Ryan

[Rspaight]

Journalist finds himself on other side of the news
Jon Leiberman, once Sinclair's golden boy, is out of work after questioning his employer.

By David Folkenflik and Stephen Kiehl
Sun Staff
Originally published October 20, 2004

Jon Leiberman's world turned upside down yesterday. A man used to asking tough questions found himself answering them. A man used to covering the news found himself making the news.

On Monday, Leiberman was fired from his post as Sinclair Broadcast Group's Washington bureau chief for criticizing as biased his company's decision to air a controversial news program based on allegations against Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee.

The comments brought national attention to the Westminster native who has wanted to be on television and in the spotlight since age 4. Now he is 29 and out of a job, after his remarks were published in The Sun. Leiberman said he finally spoke out after a painful, months-long journey of disillusionment with an employer that he said has strayed far from objective reporting.

"It was the daily struggle to get fair news on the air," he said. "I've been raising red flags for months. I didn't just fly off the handle. ... This is an agonizing process."

The Maryland-based corporation owns or operates 62 stations in 39 markets that reach about 24 percent of the American viewing public. In creating a centralized newscast for many of its stations, produced at its Hunt Valley headquarters, Sinclair sought a new tone to distinguish it from many of its local competitors. It was flashy and fast-paced. It was edgy.

But Leiberman said that tone took on a clear ideological bent, and it came directly from CEO David D. Smith and vice president and editorialist Mark Hyman: Stories had to be positive for conservatives and Republicans, he said, and negative for Democrats and liberals.

Last weekend, Sinclair executives began finalizing plans to air an hourlong special built around charges that Kerry's anti-war activism had led to the prolonged torture of U.S. prisoners of war by their North Vietnamese captors. After months of internal protest, Leiberman spoke out.

"I didn't do this for attention,"he said. "I didn't do this for my 10 minutes, because I know that in a week from now this will all be gone - all the attention - and I'll still have to live with my decision. I think I can do that."

Messages left yesterday for four top Sinclair executives were not returned. But earlier in the week, Hyman called Leiberman a "disgruntled" employee who had violated company policy by criticizing Sinclair publicly and revealing its editorial processes.

Yesterday, Sinclair announced that it will air the program on one station per market; that means 40 of the company's stations will show the program. Sinclair said the special will focus in part on the role of documentary films in this year's election, in addition to allegations against Kerry.

In a statement yesterday, the company's vice president for news, Joseph DeFeo, defended the program: "We are endeavoring, as we do with all of our news coverage, to present both sides of the issues covered in an equal and impartial manner."

Smith said in the same statement: "We cannot in a free America yield to the misguided attempts by a small but vocal minority to influence behavior and trample on the First Amendment rights of those with whom they might not agree."

Over the course of a 45-minute lunch in Baltimore yesterday, Leiberman's cell phone rang five times - but no job offers yet. Reporters and producers were looking to put him on the air to talk about his decision. He has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and several local radio and television stations.

He also heard from his wife, Michele, a producer at WBAL-TV in Baltimore. She urged him to get hot tea and throat lozenges and told him, "If you lose your voice, you won't be able to get your message out."

Leiberman, an Owings Mills resident, learned how to get his message out a long time ago. When he was 4, his family would go to Sunday brunch at Baugher's Restaurant in Westminster. A precocious child, Leiberman would read the sports section to the diners. He loved being the deliverer of news, and he loved the attention.

In elementary school, he read the weather report over the public address system every morning. He was president of his class at Westminster High School and he interned at the local cable channel. While a student at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., he interned for CNBC. He later worked at local stations in Topeka, Kan., and Albuquerque, N.M., before returning to Baltimore in the summer of 2000. He quickly made his mark as an investigative reporter and last year was made chief of Sinclair's Washington bureau.

"In terms of being diligent about getting things right, he stood out early in his career," said Ava Greenwell, an associate journalism professor at Northwestern who is still in touch with Leiberman. She said his stand this week took courage, especially in an industry where young reporters are most concerned with their careers. "It's a hard decision to make when you're in his position."

But speaking out seems to run in Leiberman's family. His mother, Shelley Sarsfield, wrote letters to the editor of The Sun as a child. His stepsister, Jennifer Sarsfield, told police investigators about three Westminster High classmates who sold heroin to a 15-year-old who died of an overdose. She was forced to withdraw from school.

"I was determined that they would have the courage of their convictions," Shelley Sarsfield said of her children. She said she expected Jon, who was raised in the Jewish faith, to become a rabbi because he loved ceremony and speaking before the congregation. But he went into journalism instead.

"I think deep down he felt, why should he have an audience once a week, when he could have an audience every night?" his mother said.

During several recent interviews, Leiberman described the journey he took that led to his pointed remarks - and his firing from Sinclair this week.

By last winter, Leiberman said he was privately complaining to his bosses about the blurring of the line between the company's news stories and the conservative, pro-Bush editorials of Mark Hyman. It came to a head when Hyman and Leiberman were sent to Iraq in February to find positive developments missed by the rest of the mainstream media, which Sinclair executives said were focusing too narrowly on the unstable conditions there.

"Our mission really is to tell stories we think local news viewers aren't getting throughout the country," Leiberman told The Sun at the time.

Cameramen accompanied Leiberman, who was to report stories, and Hyman, whose assignment was to tape editorials about conditions in Iraq under the U.S.-led occupation. But the difference between the two became tough to discern, Leiberman said. "The commentaries were being presented as news," he said.

In separate interviews, two former Sinclair producers - Lisa Modarelli and Dana Hackley - gave similar accounts of Leiberman's struggles with his news bosses, in Iraq and back at home.

"Mark Hyman had his own agenda, which was to [produce] stories that he envisioned to be commentaries but that the average viewer would see as news," said Hackley, who has since left the company for a job at a Pittsburgh university.

By late spring, Leiberman was thoroughly disillusioned. (He provided copies of e-mailed correspondence this week to The Sun to bolster his account.) In early May, he forwarded to DeFeo, the news vice president, a copy of a complaint from a viewer who said that the company's newscast was biased. Leiberman added a note saying he agreed.

Hackley said Hyman and Smith routinely gave story ideas to news executives, who usually sought quick reaction by reporters.

On June 10, Leiberman asked to be released from his contract with Sinclair. In an e-mail to DeFeo, Leiberman wrote: "I am miserable in this position. We don't have the resources to cover the news, and the resources we are given are always driven toward conservative agenda stories. We are not balanced and I have a problem with it."

DeFeo responded soothingly, according to the correspondence given to The Sun: "I like having you on board with me as we build this. We will, and have, made some mistakes in this complex process."

Leiberman complained to DeFeo and Carl Gottlieb, managing editor of Sinclair's corporate news division, about a series of story selections. They were skewed toward stories that would make Kerry look bad, he argued. Many of them were defensible on their own terms, Leiberman said. But at a time when the bureau was typically producing one story a night, story selection was everything.

In response to one such lament, Gottlieb replied by e-mail, "Jon, all news is agenda driven."

Leiberman said he was crushed by that message and others like it: "They want to brand the product as being different - but this message and this image comes from the top. I'm fine with being different - but let's be fair about it. People joked in the newsroom that Sinclair was called 'GOP-TV.'"

On Oct. 11, he wrote to Smith, the CEO, beseeching him to reconsider the plans to run the excerpts of the anti-Kerry documentary Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal as part of an unprecedented hourlong special. He asked, again, to be allowed to search for jobs. "The problem is the public perception that we are the 'far right wing' media," he wrote to Smith. "I feel I can not be a true journalist in this capacity because our company is not viewed as fair by many of our subjects."

According to Leiberman, he never heard a response.

On Sunday, the reporter reflected, took a deep breath, told his bosses he didn't want to work on the project. And then he spoke out - transforming himself, however fleetingly, from the reporter covering the news into the story itself.

[lukpac]

I'm not sure why I'm bothering with this...

Who Are The "Brainwashers"?
http://www.cnsnews.com/bozellcolumn/bozell.asp

by L. Brent Bozell III
October 19, 2004

TV news stars have foisted Microsoft forgeries on President Bush (CBS)

Hmm. Seems to me the bigger story wasn't the documents themselves, but rather CBS's screw-up.

composed internal memos declaring that the Bush campaign is a cavalcade of liars and must be exposed as such (ABC).

How soon we forget about 8 years of Clinton bashing.

For most of this year, these left-wing journalists have portrayed John Kerry’s war years as if he were a combination of Private Ryan, Sergeant York, and G.I. Joe. They have touted his "chestful of medals," and swooned over every replay of his military home movies (yes, the ones he vowed he’d never use for political gain).

Didn't Bush say he wouldn't use 9/11 for political gain? Funny - there's a message on my machine now from a 9/11 widow telling me to vote for Bush. And, yes, President Bush personally approved it.

Those who remember him differently – as a man who went to battle to polish his political resume

Of course! Why else would he have gone into battle but it improve his future political chances?!

and then returned home to smear his comrades in the war effort as vandals, rapists, and murderers – are not to be defined as "newsworthy."

I guess "the people running this war, ie, the US government" is the same thing as "his comrades".

But with all the one-sided boosterism of Kerry the war hero, we must ask: Is "Stolen Honor" a blatant offense against balance? Or can it qualify, at least in a few media markets, as a limited but razor-sharp contrast to the liberal media monoculture, as the arrival of balance? "Stolen Honor" critics ought to shut up, sit down, and watch before they condemn it.

I'm still waiting to see this "monoculture".

After a parade of unsubstantiated hearsay from these Vietnamese peasants

Unsubstantiated? Seems to me it agrees with the official record of events.

[Matt]

Thanks for the laugh, Matt. Bozell's a funny guy, isn't he?

Ryan

Mr. Bozell is great. I want to give back, so how about some more laughs?



He sure looks a lot like Laurel:



Then again, Lurch:

[lukpac]

Again, I'm so happy the discourse has been raised to a new level.

[Rspaight]

We have facts and analysis. Matt has juvenile pictures and farcical ravings from loony-right web sites. Seems like the normal level of discourse to me.

Ryan

PS - Bozell is such a sleaze that even the noted liberal bastion of *pro wrestling* sued him for defamation and won (out of court):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dy ... ge=printer

[Matt]

We have facts and analysis. Matt has juvenile pictures and farcical ravings from loony-right web sites. Seems like the normal level of discourse to me.

Ryan

PS - Bozell is such a sleaze that even the noted liberal bastion of *pro wrestling* sued him for defamation and won (out of court):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dy ... ge=printer

Come on, I was only kidding with the picures.