Airing an anti-Kerry screed

[George_S]

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Airing an anti-Kerry screed

McClatchy Newspapers
Last Updated: October 12, 2004, 12:49:41 PM PDT

(MN) - If the stunt that Sinclair Broadcasting Group is pulling isn't against the law, it ought to be. Sinclair, owner of more American television stations than any other company, has ordered all 62 of its holdings - which collectively reach a quarter of American households - to suspend normal programming for one evening just before the upcoming presidential election. The stations are instead to air a one-hour conservative diatribe against Sen. John Kerry. This is a flagrant and cynical abuse of the public's airwaves for a partisan political purpose, an action that should put Sinclair's federal broadcast licenses in jeopardy. For comparison, imagine that WCCO's owner, CBS, ordered it to broadcast Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Indeed, Moore's film, while avowedly anti-Bush, is tame compared to the so-called documentary Sinclair plans to broadcast. "Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal" focuses on Kerry's antiwar activities 30 years ago. A Web site for the film says it exposes Kerry's "record of betrayal." In the film, one Vietnam POW asserts that Kerry "committed an act of treason. He lied, he besmirched our name and he did it for self-interest. And now he wants us to forget." More than a dozen of the television stations required to air this screed are in the key battleground states of Wisconsin, Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

http://www.modbee.com/24hour/opinions/story/1729373p-9551177c.html