mediacrit.com

In my last column, I talked about how the television media could serve the public interest better in political campaigns and elections. I argued that most broadcast media organizations have a tenuous commitment to the notion of public interest when it comes to elections. Since that time, Sinclair Communications from suburban Baltimore has demonstrated that they have absolutely no interest in serving public interest at all.

This is the media company that back in April decided Nightline‘s tribute to America’s Iraqi war dead (a very somber program in which Ted Koppel slowly read names of about 700 soldiers, accompanied by their photos) was too political. Their actions blocked the show in St. Louis; Asheville, North Carolina; Greensboro, North Carolina; Columbus, Ohio; Springfield, Massachusetts; Charleston, West Virginia; and Mobile, Alabama. Critics from the left and right correctly assailed Sinclair for playing politics with a very humble tribute to U.S. soldiers lost in Iraq.

Now Sinclair is ordering all of its 62 stations (including KGAN, Ch. 2, the CBS affiliate in Cedar Rapids) to show a 45-minute anti-Kerry documentary titled “Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal” in the days right before the Nov. 2 election. Never mind, of course, that Section 315 of the Communications Act requires equal time for candidates. Sinclair says that the documentary fits Section 315′s news exemption, but by all reasonable accounts, this isn’t news, its pure propaganda.

No matter which candidate you favor in the election, you shouldn’t be happy about what Sinclair is doing. This action certainly doesn’t permit broadcasters to operate in the interest of their local audiences. I know professionally many decent news people who work for KGAN and wonder how difficult it must be to work under an increasingly meddling owner with such little regard for journalism.

In its defense, Sinclair says that they’ve invited John Kerry to have time to respond, but that invitation is like having to answer one of those loaded “Have you stopped beating your wife?” questions.

As the nonprofit, nonpartisan Free Press says about Sinclair’s most recent actions, “It’s not about liberal or conservative. It’s about corruption, the destruction of democratic discourse, and Big Media trying to skew elections.”

Want to know more? See www.sinclairwatch.org.