neverforget
Vice Admiral
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
Posts: 875
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 Posted: Sat Oct 23, 2004 7:07 am Post subject: Viewers Get Only a Peek of a Movie Chiding Kerry |
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| Quote: | 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.
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US Army Security Agency
1965-1971 |
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Anker-Klanker
Admiral
Joined: 04 Sep 2004
Posts: 1033
Location: Richardson, TX
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| Posted: Sat Oct 23, 2004 2:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | 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. |
If the Kerry campaign isn't unhappy then you know how biased it was. |
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