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[JK]

Shows that the public access stations can be used by us to inform the public regardless of Kerry's oppression.

JK

Posted on Wed, Oct. 20, 2004

Wayne station shows anti-Kerry film

Radnor Studio 21 telecast "Stolen Honor." "There were no riots in the streets," the station manager said.

By Tina Moore

Inquirer Staff Writer

While a major broadcasting company battled opponents of an anti-John Kerry documentary, a little public-access television station in Wayne showed Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal - and may do it again.

"All the hoopla, and you know what?" Radnor Studio 21 station manager George Strimel said yesterday. "No governments fell. There were no riots in the street."

Sinclair Broadcast Group, which planned to telecast Stolen Honor on its 62 stations this week, owns no outlets in the Philadelphia region, but Studio 21's approximately 8,000 viewers had the chance to view the documentary Oct. 4 and 5 on a program called Radnor Review.

"We just put it on," said Patricia Booker, a Republican who produces the cable show. "To some degree, our local Democrats were upset about it."

A local Vietnam War veteran who "participated in making it happen" gave her a copy of the film, she said, and "I thought that it was another side of the story that needed to be told."

She declined to identify the veteran.

Booker's husband, Rich, a Republican, is a member of the Radnor Township school board. Booker volunteers with the Bush campaign.

Booker said she believed that veterans who were affected by antiwar activity three decades ago never received enough coverage in the news media.

The Kerry campaign has called the documentary an attack on its candidate and said it would attempt to get equal time for the senator on Studio 21.

"We'll try to get some counter-programming on to spread the truth about John Kerry, instead of the Carlton Sherwood version of reality," said Kerry's Pennsylvania spokesman, Mark Nevins.

Sherwood, who lives in Harrisburg, is the former Washington Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner who produced Stolen Honor.

Strimel, the station manager, said the studio in Wayne received one complaint. He emphasized that the station, which runs as a nonprofit, reflects opinions from both ends of the political spectrum. Radnor Township finances the station, which is also supported by donations and fund-raisers. Comcast provides the studio space and pays utility costs.

Chip Layfield, 51, a Democrat who produces a Studio 21 program called Round About Radnor, was the complainant Strimel cited. Layfield said the documentary violated the station's own rules.

The rules say "candidates shall be solely responsible for the content of their presentations," Layfield said. "John Kerry was not responsible for the content of this presentation."

He said the station has the rule to prevent negative campaigning. In the future, Layfield said, he wants the station to stick to local programming.

Layfield said he believed the station's board was partly responsible and accused it of having a partisan agenda. Four of the station's seven board members were appointed by the majority Republican township commissioners.

Jack Weiner, president of the station's board, said the board leaves programming decisions to its station manager.

"We're not in the business of censorship," he said. "We're there to provide a community service. That's the whole nature of public-access television."

Weiner, a lawyer who produces the station's Radnor Soccer Club Game of the Week show, said the station refuses to show content that is pornographic, defamatory or slanderous.

He said the board would welcome an opposing point of view and planned to discuss whether to show the documentary again at a board meeting last night.

"There are people who use the station to communicate their own political views, and I think that's what happened here," Weiner said.

Booker, who never expected to gain fame through a local-access cable-TV show, is waiting to see what happens with legal action against Sinclair.

But she said she has no plans to back down: "Our intention is to run it again."
Contact staff writer Tina Moore at 215-854-4891 or tmoore@phillynews.com.


http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/9964630.htm

note: Topic updated

[Barbie2004]

There would certainly NOT be "riots in the streets" in other locations if they would just show Stolen Honor.

I sure do hope the controvercy has increased the sales of the DVD.

The Democrats and the Unions have only created the impression of a "firestorm" with their mass electronic mailings, which any knowledgable programmer could create with bots.

I just heard on the news that only 40 Sinclair stations will be airing the "program" and not the originally promised 62.

We need to keep those emails going.

[dog teacher]

When are the Dems going to get it? They had their say with 'Fahrenheit'. Now it's our turn. Or does the First Amendement only apply to Dems? Problem is, the Republicans don't have the same dirty low life, street fighter attitude of the left. It's time to get over it. When are we going to learn? I wonder how they would have reacted if 'we' had protested the movie theaters.

[margie]

I wrote a thank you to Tina Moore, thank you for putting her email address on your post.

[Me#1You#10]

Interesting...I was wondering awhile back if public access might be an opportunity to air "Stolen Honor"...apparently so

[Me#1You#10]

Follow-up...cable station yields to legal pressure...inspired me to buy 5 copies of the DVD.

[Barbie2004]

I thought that "the truth" is an absolute defense to lawsuits based libel or slander.

What about a counter suit? I believe that Campbell's suit is totally frivolous.

Are there any lawyers here who might know?