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Stolen Honor: Sinclair Under Fire
worm eater writes "The Sinclair Broadcasting Group, in its latest politically charged move, has announced that it will air a 90-minute anti-Kerry documentary a week before the election. The video, 'Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal,' was funded by a group of Pennsylvania POWs that has merged with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Sinclair, which is the largest TV broadcasting group in the nation, has 62 affiliates, many in swing states. It made news in April by refusing to let any of its affiliates air an edition of Nightline in which Ted Koppel read the names of US soldiers who had died in Iraq, saying the broadcast was politically motivated. Predictably, liberal blogs are fighting back."
Damn those liberals that control the media! This is just a vast conspiracy to distort Bush's record and try to get Kerry into office by bringing up stuff that happened decades ago. Can't they let the DWI arrest and the Guard service stories die?
Geesh. And all this time I never believed the stories about the "liberal media".
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
But on the other hand, they don't give an affirmative statement that the documentary is not intended to attack Kerry.
Since they're basically slashdotted, this is on their front page:
We welcome your comments regarding the upcoming special news event featuring the topic of Americans held as prisoners of war in Vietnam. The program has not been videotaped and the exact format of this unscripted event has not been finalized. Characterizations regarding the content are premature and are based on ill-informed sources.
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry has been invited to participate. You can urge him to appear by calling his Washington, D.C. campaign headquarters at
(202) 712-3000.
if you would like to make further comments on this matter, you may do so at:
comments@sbgi.net
Wait a minute... Do you realize what you're comparing?
You really honestly think Fahrenheit 911 being released in theaters where you have to pay between $6-$11 (nationally) to see it as the same as a normal television channel airing a "news item" with no commericials on PUBLIC AIRWAVES?
Are you crazy? Are you blind? How are they at all the same.
What IS hypocritical, is that the republicans shut down a movie about the Reagan family (The Reagans, supposed to air on CBS) because they felt it was unfair/politically motivated. AND IT WASN'T EVEN ABOUT A CURRENT CANDIDATE!!!!!
You want to talk about hypocritical....
Very interesting. Do you have a link? Not that i don't trust you, i just want to read more about it.
... and tell them you're not going to be buying their products as long as they support Sinclair. Hurt Sinclair where it really stings - in the wallet.
List of Advertisers
Furthermore, just in case you don't think your phone call will do anything, see a little morale-booster from Kos.
Remember, the only logical standard for judging is "If the other side did the exact same thing, how would you feel?"
If your are pro-Kerry, but it wouldn't bother you to see a hatchet job on Bush at the same time by the same basic people, then you really have no grounds to complain.
Flip-side, if you are Pro-Bush, but would not want to see a hatchet job on Kerry at the same time, then you should not support this.
Personally, since I sort of fall into the latter category (I'm not 100% for Bush, but Kerry has completely failed to convince me he is better in the ways I personally care about; this is disclosure, not a request to be "corrected", OK?), my personal opinion is that this is an inappropriate action to take, and I don't care what side does it. If it was run earlier, I don't think I'd care, and there have certainly been hatchet jobs on both sides meeting this criteria, but the closer you get to the election, the more important it is for large entities to shut the hell up and leave the final voting as a matter between the candidates and the voters.
POWs like John McCain? Scarred veterans like Max Cleland? Maybe the veteran William Laws Calley? For shame!
Maybe a drunk, AWOL frat boy high on coke and Air National Guard issue oxygen could help us set the record straight here? I hear he got kidnapped by Delta Kappa Phi once and forced to drink a whole keg of Bud, I guess that makes him not only a POW, but subject of cruel and unusual punishment as well. Talk about stolen honor...
Money for nothing, pix for free
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/e1/equaltime.asp
a Federal Communications Commission rule that requires equal air time for all major candidates competing for political office. It was preceded by the fairness doctrine, abolished in 1987, which required radio and television broadcasters to air contrasting views on controversial public issues.
Without regard to your political leanings, I suspect you will live to regret saying that.
What this really does is set a precedent opening the door to outright political warfare over the public airwaves. You can be certain if this goes forward, that some politically-motivated group will respond with an anti-Bush message much worse than anything even Moore would be accused of stooping to. (And remember, if it air's after the Kerry attack, there will be even less time for the forces-of-truth to pick apart the lies.) It may not happed this election cycle, but once the tactic is considered allowable, you can write-off any hope of getting fair and balanced coverage of the issues from any aspect of the public media. The prize will be just too big to ignore.
We mustn't be led into the trap of saying "it's okay for <one candidate> to get away with ruining our country, because <the other guy> got away with it; down that road lies only madness and ruin.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
wow. So many open targets...where to begin...
1. Michael Moore doesn't own 62 stations, and he didn't force anyone to show his movie. He made it, and people gladly lined up to see it. It may have been a little too conspiritorial in a few places, but no one has proved it untrue, and it's certainly not showing up masquerading as a news show.
2. Despite what you are determined to believe, while the memos may have proven to be fake, the 'real facts' did in fact get out and guess what, they support what's expressed in the memos. That's what made it possible to verify them. Everyone and their brother agreed that what's in them is true.
3. George Soros also has not forced anyone to broadcast anything. He's written a rational essay, and paid for it to be dispatched like any other advertising. See point #1.
Now if Dan Rather had put Fahrenheit 9/11 on TV and dressed it up as news, then you might have a point, but you seem to be hanging on to your simplistic views a little too tightly.
- Amendment I
While the "freedom of the press" could possibly be stretched to cover the situation, it's still a pretty big stretch. Congress is not doing a ruddy thing to silence a large media group. A corporation. Businesses are not people, and should not be viewed as individuals. There is no proviso securing the unhampered freedom of speech for a business; it's a right guaranteed only to human beings.Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Now, if Kerry were to use his position as a senator to enact punitive bitch-slap legislation that was aimed at Sinclair, then yes; there's a clear violation. However, as it stands, what we have here is a media conglomerate throwing its corporate weight around to promote a particular political viewpoint. Period.
So much for the "Liberal Media" meme.
Doing my level best to piss off the religious right wing...
Here's an explanation of why Sinclair should not be allowed to run this "news segment," in the words of former FCC chairman Reed Hundt (pulled from Talking Points Memo):
Why is it important that Sinclair Broadcasting be urged in all lawful ways that can be imagined to reconsider its decision to broadcast on its television stations the anti-Kerry "documentary"?
Because in a large, pluralistic information society democracy will not work unless electronic media distribute reasonably accurate information and also competing opinions about political candidates to the entire population. Certainly, for the overwhelming number of voters this year, controlling impressions of the candidates for President are obtained from television.
In all countries, candidates for public office governments aspire to have favorable information and a chorus of favorable opinion disseminated through mass media to the citizenry. In a democracy, on the eve of a quadrennial election, the incumbent government plainly has a motive to encourage the media to report positively on its record but also negatively on the rival. But its role instead is to make sure that broadcast television promote democracy by conveying reasonably accurate reflections of where the candidates stand and what they are like.
To that end, since television was invented, Congress and its delegated agency, the Federal Communications Commision, together have passed laws and regulations to ensure that broadcast television stations provide reasonably accurate, balanced, and fair coverage of major Presidential and Congressional candidates. These obligations are reflected in specific provisions relating to rights to buy advertising time, bans against the gift of advertising time, rights to reply to opponents, and various other specific means of accomplishing the goal of balance and fairness. The various rules are part of a tradition well known to broadcasters an honored by almost all of them. This tradition is embodied in the commitment of the broadcasters to show the conventions and the debates.
Part of this tradition is that broadcasters do not show propaganda for any candidate, no matter how much a station owner may personally favor one or dislike the other. Broadcasters understand that they have a special and conditional role in public discourse. They received their licenses from the public -- licenses to use airwaves that, for instance, cellular companies bought in auctions -- for free, and one condition is the obligation to help us hold a fair and free election. The Supreme Court has routinely upheld this "public interest" obligation. Virtually all broadcasters understand and honor it.
Sinclair has a different idea, and a wrong one in my view. If Sinclair wants to disseminate propaganda, it should buy a printing press, or create a web site. These other media have no conditions on their publication of points of view. This is the law, and it should be honored. In fact, if the FCC had any sense of its responsibility as a steward of fair elections its chairman now would express exactly what I am writing to you here.
Maybe partying will help...
>[T]his is really no different from the New York Times endorsing a candidate for president
The NY Times, or any other newspaper, doesn't use the publicly owned airwaves to distribute its copy and doesn't need a government license to publish. Sinclair, and all other teevee stations do and are subject to the FCC Fairness Doctrine and its implementing regulations. If this is OK, them I'm sure all our neo-con pals will be OK with Turner Broadcasting airing Farenheit 911 on Monday November 1, followed, of course, by a fair and balanced panel discussion at 11 pm PST.Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
read the names of US soldiers who had died in Iraq, saying the broadcast was politically motivated.
Reading the names of the fallen used to be considered an act of honoring the memory of the soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Honorable and truthful activities should be carried out regardless of whether some political faction or other thinks they can make hay from it.
It's yet another symptom of our society where perception trumps substance. What matters is how something is perceived - not what it actually is.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I don't understandy why this documentary is such a big deal then. This is a documentary (it's factual) that calls into question John Kerry's behavior after/during the Vietnam war. 60 Minutes aired a documentary that called into question George Bush's behavior during the war. 60 Minutes was broadcast on FAR more stations then this will be. Dan Rather reported misconduct by Bush during the war. It could be called news, history, documentary, whatever you want. The behavior of John Kerry at the same time is now being reported by some other source (although maybe less "reputable" than Dan Rather).
This is not a sensationalistic documentary like Moores, this is going to be speeches given by Kerry, an account of where he was, and interviews with wives of POWs who say that their husbands were made to listen to Kerry as torture when they were in prison (to demoralize them, I guess).
To complain about this but not Dan Rather's 60 Minutes is a double standard.
"The key issue here is this, this is a freedom of speech issue."
Incorrect. Airwaves are not "free speach" zones. They are heavily regulated finite resource. They are leased to business but they are a public resource. One of the requirements from the FCC is that they are administered in the public interest. Sinclair claims that this program is "news".
That claim - that this is a 90 minute news piece done for the public good - doesn't pass the laugh test.
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
One leading staffer from the Kerry campaign has even threated future government suppression of first Amendment rights, saying "they had better hope we don't win," implying that the cost of publically criticizing Kerry will be considerable should he ever come to power.
Or, you know, it could have implied that any suppression of speech for political gain would not be tolerated.
If you want to talk about hypocrisy, then here's some details about when Sinclair Broadcasting tried to stop the broadcasting of Iraq fatalities because it was "unpatriotic" (the word used in the article). Compare it with today's story about Sinclair leveraging their stations to air the anti-Kerry piece to as many people as possible so close to the national elections. It's a little tougher to explain why that's not hypocritical, don't you think? They couldn't POSSIBLY be politically motivated right?
=Smidge=
the Swift Boat Vets haven't managed to get a single person who personally served with Kerry to say anything bad about him. The best they have managed to do is people who met him once or twice. I suggest you check out www.swiftvets.org. You'll find that even those people that only met him a few times actually have said positive things about kerry until recenty. I can only assume what Swift Vets did to get them to change thier minds.
A. This is not a "news story". It is a 90 minute Swift boat smear commercial for Bush, uninterrupted by other commercials, being presented under the guise of news.
B. The right to a free press is restricted to those with printing presses. Sinclair does not own the public airwaves it will use to broadcast this garbage. Any right-wing media conglomerate is free to express its opinions under First Amendment protection, using cable, a web site, or a bullhorn- once its broadcast license has been revoked in accordance with the law. Broadcasting an infomercial for the president on public airwaves is a blatant violation of McCain-Feingold. Amazingly, the FCC under Michael Powell shows no interest in enforcing the law in this case.
C. There is a conflict of interest here. One of Sinclair's wholly owned subsidiaries (Jadoo Power Systems) has just been awarded a contract to develop power systems for the US Special Operations Command. The other major investor in Jadoo is Contango Capital Management, located in Houston TX, whose Managing Partner is John Berger who used to manage energy trading books for Enron Corporation and who also served as an advisor to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 2002 and 2003. This stinks to high heaven.
D. In case you didn't think he was an asshat, the CEO of Sinclair made the following statement on CNN this morning:
So press coverage of car bombs and unemployment statistics is equivalent to unfair free campaign commercials for Kerry. And the rest of the press are "Holocaust deniers" for denying partisan political hacks a forum from which they can make baseless thirty-year-old accusations on the eve of a close election.
This from the same media conglomerate that back in April suppressed Nightline's reading of the names of soldiers killed in Iraq because it was "contrary to the public interest." Riiiight.