[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: Viewers Get Only a Peek of a Movie Chiding Kerry

[ialterman at nyc.rr.com]

The article below from NYTimes.com 
has been sent to you by ialterman at nyc.rr.com.


Hooray for our side!  Apparently, even the most rabid neocons will not do something against their financial self-interest.  As soon as Sinclair saw the backlash - and specifically the anger of certain stockholders and many advertisers, and the resultant huge loss in both share market value and ad revenue - they were forced to seriously rethink their plans.

Clearly, one of the best ways to "control" this type of behavior from the right - especially the right-wing media - is to "hit them where it hurts": in the pocketbook.

Peace.

ialterman at nyc.rr.com


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Viewers Get Only a Peek of a Movie Chiding Kerry

October 23, 2004
 By BILL CARTER and SCOTT SHANE 



 

After stirring up protest over its plans to broadcast a
documentary critical of Senator John Kerry, the Sinclair
Broadcast Group presented a program last night that gave
short shrift to that film and offered instead a measured
analysis of the debate over Mr. Kerry's Vietnam War record.


The hourlong special program, produced by the news
department at Sinclair, a major financial supporter of
Republican candidates and which regularly features
conservative commentary on its newscasts, included as many
backers of Mr. Kerry as critics. 

Sinclair's producers seemed to go out of their way to
create a balanced political collage in the special, called
"A P.O.W. Story: Politics, Pressure and the Media." 

Only about four minutes of Carlton Sherwood's anti-Kerry
film, "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," were included
- and virtually the same amount of time was devoted to an
excerpt from "Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry," a
film by George Butler that presents Mr. Kerry as a war
hero. 

The program was apparently balanced enough to satisfy a
consortium of media watchdog groups, which held a telephone
news conference last night to say Sinclair had acted
responsibly. It also enraged a number of conservative
viewers who tuned in expecting to see a hour of attacks on
Mr. Kerry. 

The prevailing theme of conservative viewers, as expressed
on Internet Weblogs and chat rooms last night, was that
Sinclair, the nation's largest local television station
owner, had backed down as it saw its stock price plummet
and came under intense heat from shareholder groups and
advertisers for putting the company's political views ahead
of its business interests. 

"Sinclair has caved to pressure," wrote a poster listed as
Kaferhaus on the Free Republic site, one of the largest
conservative discussion forums on the Internet. "Very
obviously they're running scared." 

On another conservative site, Little Green Footballs, a
poster identified as "mas" wrote: "Sinclair wimped out.
This is more pro-Kerry than anti." The poster added, "I
gave up 'Joan of Arcadia' for this?" 

Sinclair executives had originally fiercely defended the
right to broadcast the film, which accuses Mr. Kerry of
making false statements about soldiers' atrocities and
contends that those statements prolonged the captivity of
American prisoners of war in Vietnam. In more recent days
the company said the film was never intended to be shown in
its entirety. The company did not comment last night. 

The Kerry campaign was not mollified. In a statement, Chad
Clanton, a Kerry spokesman, said: "Sinclair executives have
given more than $100,000 to George W. Bush and the
Republican Party. Tonight they supported him with millions
of dollars of air time devoted to an anti-Kerry smear aimed
at influencing the election." 

Mr. Clanton said Sinclair had given no more than "lip
service to the first amendment," in the broadcast, which
was seen on 40 local television stations, many in swing
states. 

The Kerry campaign had earlier demanded equal time for
Kerry supporters to respond to the film. But one Kerry
representative said last night that the demand might now be
superfluous, given how little of the film was used and how
many pro-Kerry voices were included. 

Beyond the brief use of clips from the two films, the
program included two other segments, about four minutes
each, devoted to the debate surrounding the Vietnam-era
military service of both presidential candidates. It
summarized questions about Mr. Kerry's Vietnam service,
medals and subsequent Congressional testimony denouncing
the war, as well as questions about whether President Bush
got family help to join the Texas National Guard during the
Vietnam War and then failed to complete his service
obligation after going to Alabama to work on a political
campaign. 

Serving as host of the show was Jeff Barnd, an anchor with
Sinclair's flagship station in Baltimore, WBFF. Mr. Barnd
said Sinclair had sought an interview with Mr. Kerry
repeatedly and finally approached him on the campaign
trail. The senator was shown deflecting a reporter's
question about the Vietnam years and criticizing Mr. Bush's
record. 

The most contentious part of the broadcast was the
insistence by Mr. Barnd and other Sinclair officials, shown
in brief clips, that the national news media had distorted
the company's intentions and that the Kerry campaign, the
Democratic National Committee and some members of Congress
had tried to interfere with the company's First Amendment
rights. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/politics/campaign/23sinclair.html?ex=1099555126&ei=1&en=3442cede36e7642d


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