Headlines, North America

POLITICS: Bush-boosting Network Pushes Anti-Kerry Doc

Katherine Stapp

NEW YORK, Oct 13 2004 (IPS) - Watchdog groups have found a new poster child for the evils of media deregulation with the news that a powerful broadcasting conglomerate will show a documentary excoriating Democratic candidate Senator John Kerry just days before the presidential vote.

The company, Sinclair Broadcast Group, has ordered its 62 stations to cancel regular programming to show the privately-funded, 42-minute film, ‘Stolen Honour: Wounds that Never Heal’, which features Vietnam veterans and former prisoners of war slamming Kerry for his 1971 testimony to Congress about atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers during the war.

The former soldiers say Kerry’s words resulted in them facing harsher treatment from their captors.

Sinclair’s management has taken unabashedly pro-administration stances in the past, banning its stations from airing a respected television news show in which the anchor read the names of U.S. war dead in Iraq, and ordering its employees – including weather and sports commentators – to read statements affirming their allegiance to President George W Bush shortly after the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The timing of ‘Stolen Honour,’ just days before the Nov. 2 vote, has also raised eyebrows. The Maryland-based company’s television stations reach 24 percent of the U.S. public, including 14 in states where the two main candidates are running neck-in-neck.

Critics argue that as a leading advocate of looser media ownership rules, Sinclair has an especially keen interest in the outcome of the vote. The company is financially embattled, shedding nearly one-half its stock price this year, but market expansion plans that could give it a boost have been thwarted by current ownership caps.

Existing rules say one company cannot own two or more stations in the same market unless there is significant competition, and cannot own TV stations reaching more than 35 percent of all homes.

Earlier this summer, a federal appeals court overturned a series of controversial industry-backed rule changes by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – whose chairman Michael Powell is the son of Bush’s secretary of state, Colin Powell – that would have allowed a single company to own three TV stations, eight radio stations and the monopoly newspaper in a single market.

According to the Centre for Responsive Politics, Sinclair spent almost 67,000 dollars in this election cycle backing Republican candidates who support its deregulation agenda.

Kerry has said he would oppose any further easing of the FCC’s ownership rules.

“Media policy-making is one of the most corrupt processes in Washington,” according to Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, a public interest group. “Sinclair has picked their horse, and millions of dollars are on the line.”

“The heart of the problem is that Sinclair is using the public airwaves, at no cost to the company, in order to advance their political agenda, and they’re turning journalistic standards on their head.”

“We’re not saying: ‘don’t show it’,” Silver added. “We’re saying: ‘either stop calling it news when in fact it’s electioneering, or give equal time and allow a piece of the same brazenly partisan nature to air’ (on behalf of Kerry).”

Sinclair is most vulnerable in several markets where its broadcasting licences are up for renewal, so Free Press has set up a website urging the public in those areas to file complaints with the FCC and to document instances where the firm fails to serve the public interest.

The group has also issued a report describing what it says are dubious operating practices that allowed Sinclair to circumvent federal rules meant to prevent one company from monopolising media outlets in a single market.

For example, at least five of Sinclair’s 62 television stations are actually owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, a company held by relatives of Sinclair CEO David Smith, but are operated by Sinclair under so-called local marketing agreements (LMAs).

“If they force the stations under the LMAs to run the documentary, that’s illegal,” Silver said. “They’re supposed to have the right to retain editorial control.”

Although company executives could not be reached for comment, they have argued in the past that ‘Stolen Honour’ is “newsworthy” and therefore exempt from election rules requiring that equal time be given to the Kerry camp.

“Would they suggest that our reporting a car bomb in Iraq is an in-kind contribution to the Kerry campaign?” Sinclair vice president Mark Hyman, star of a conservative nightly commentary called ‘The Point’, told the Associated Press. “Would they suggest that our reporting on job losses is an in-kind contribution to the Kerry campaign?”

“It’s the news,” Hyman continued. “It is what it is. We’re reporting the news.”

Journalism watchdogs say Sinclair’s invitation for Kerry to attend a panel discussion to rebut the charges after the documentary airs is inadequate.

“The format of the documentary is intended to be explicitly one-sided, and that flies in the face of most definitions of what news is,” Peter Hart of New York-based Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting told IPS.

“It’s still not clear what they will end up broadcasting,” Hart added, speculating that the outcry could lead Sinclair to design a more objective programme. “There are some indications that it could be a report based on the documentary, and they could flesh it out with original reporting.”

Democratic members of Congress are not waiting to find out, filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday charging the film is a pro-Bush campaign ad masquerading as a documentary.

They are also asking the agency to investigate Sinclair, and have urged supporters to boycott the company.

“To allow a broadcasting company to air such a blatantly partisan attack in lieu of regular programming, and to classify that attack as news programming as has been suggested, would violate the spirit, and we think the text, of current law and regulation,” the senators wrote in a letter.

The FCC cannot take action until the programme actually airs (between Oct 21 and 24) at which point the agency could use fast-track authority to order the stations to broadcast a response within 72 hours – just under the wire for election day.