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"http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/opinion//index.php?ntid=14185"
"If it was a crime to get news stories completely wrong, all of the nation's television and radio networks, as well as the country's major newspapers, would be up on charges relating to their coverage of the debate about whether the United States should invade Iraq.
Because they ceased to practice journalism and instead engaged in stenography to power - treating the distortions and fantastical statements of the Bush administration and its minions as if they were legitimate statements - CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, FOX, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the rest of the so-called "elite media" of the United States failed in their basic responsibility to give the people the information they need to function in a democracy. That failure made the Bush administration's rush to war possible."
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"...while those journalists who fell for the administration's claims regarding Iraq should be ashamed of themselves, and should certainly be viewed skeptically by viewers, listeners and readers, they should be free to try to get the next story right.
The same rules do not apply, however, to television stations that set out to deliberately deceive their viewers."
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"The Sinclair Broadcast Co., which owns WMSN (FOX 47) in Madison and 61 other television stations across the country, is owned by strong supporters of President Bush and the Republican Party. Those owners have every right to make the case for Bush and against his Democratic challenger, John Kerry, in televised editorials that are identified as such. But Sinclair now proposes to abuse its licenses by airing a so-called "documentary" produced by sworn enemies of Kerry who have been linked with the Bush campaign. If the program - an attack on Kerry's Vietnam service and later opposition to that war titled "Stolen Honor" - raised honest questions, Sinclair and its affiliates would be well within their rights to pre-empt regular programming in the weeks before the election to air it.
But no serious observer believes this is what Sinclair has set out to do. Rather, all evidence suggests that Sinclair is seeking to use the public's airwaves to broadcast a deliberately deceptive attack on a candidate that the owners of the company oppose.
There is still time for Sinclair to back off. If it fails to do so, citizens should, of course, shut off Sinclair stations around the country. But they should, as well, demand that the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Election Commission and appropriate congressional committees investigate the company's abandonment of journalistic principles, abuse of the airwaves and corruption of the political process. Sinclair should be held responsible for turning a license to broadcast into a license to lie."
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