AP: "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," an anti-Kerry film which is the basis of a program the Sinclair Broadcast Group asked 60 of its 62 stations to run this week instead of regular programming, is kicking up some more controversy.
The program revisits the subject of Sen. John Kerry's actions in Vietnam and as an anti-war activist, and because it is running days before the election, the Democratic Party and 18 Democratic senators filed complaints with federal agencies objecting to the broadcast and demanding equal time.
They weren't the only ones to object, however. Sinclair Broadcast Group's Washington bureau chief, Jon Leiberman, says he's been fired for his public criticism of the company's plans to produce the program.
Leiberman - who had said he was uncomfortable with calling the program "news" instead of "commentary" - said he was fired by Joseph DeFeo, Sinclair's vice president for news, and "escorted out of the building."
"I was told I violated company policy by divulging information from a staff meeting to The (Baltimore) Sun in this morning's edition," Leiberman said late Monday.
"They're using news to drive their political agenda," says Leiberman. "I don't think it served the public trust."
In the interview published Monday, Leiberman, 29, called the planned Sinclair program "biased political propaganda, with clear intentions to sway the election."
"I really feel like I can sleep at night and I can be OK with my decision" to criticize Sinclair publicly," added Leiberman. "I know I stood up for the principles of objectivity. In journalism, all we have is credibility and objectivity."
Sinclair stations reach about a quarter of the U.S. population, including a number of the states considered key in the November 2nd election.
Mark Hyman, a vice president of corporate relations for Sinclair who is also a conservative commentator for the company, has defended the program as "a special news event that we've put together."
As a news event, it would be exempt from the FCC requirement to provide equal time for the opposing point of view.
Kerry campaign attorney Marc E. Elias says it's not a news event and as such, Sinclair is obligated to provide equal time to the Kerry campaign.
The Democrats have said they would file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, charging that the program is an illegal in-kind contribution to President Bush's campaign.
A complaint was also filed with the Federal Communications Commission, which said it would not intervene to stop the airing of the program.
Hyman, who in a Sun interview calls Leiberman "a disgruntled employee," has said it's "absolutely absurd" to call the program a contribution to the Bush campaign.
"Would they suggest that our reporting a car bomb in Iraq is an in-kind contribution to the Kerry campaign? Would they suggest that our reporting on job losses is an in-kind contribution to the Kerry campaign?" said Hyman. "It's the news. It is what it is. We're reporting the news."
Hyman hit back at Leiberman late Monday.
"Everyone is entitled to their personal opinion, including Jon Leiberman," Hyman told The Sun. "We're disappointed that Jon's political views caused him to violate policy and speak to the press about company business."
"I have never, ever let politics frame the way I cover news," Leiberman told The Sun, denying being a 'disgruntled employee.'
Leiberman has won an Emmy and awards from the Associated Press and the Society of Professional Journalists and has covered stories including the war in Iraq, government corruption, the criminal justice system, the scandal at Los Alamos and wildfires in New Mexico.
That's according to a Sinclair Broadcast Group station web site.
The company web site also has a statement on the firestorm over "Stolen Honor."
"Characterizations regarding the content are premature and are based on ill-informed sources," says the company, telling its viewers to call Kerry campaign headquarters and urge him to appear as a guest on the live panel discussion that is to follow the film.
That's not expected to happen.
The Kerry campaign has instead asked Sinclair to provide air time for a pro-Kerry program, to run at a time hitting an audience as large as the one that typically watches the slot being given to the program featuring "Stolen Honor."
This isn't Sinclair's first political flap. In April, it was in the news for refusing to run a "Nightline" broadcast in which hundreds of names of GIs killed in Iraq were read aloud.
"In this election cycle, they have put their money where their right-wing mouths are," charged Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe, in an interview last week. "Sinclair's owners aren't interested in news. They're interested in pro-Bush propaganda."
Holy War....You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend. - Richard Jeni
Personally I think this is BS... If they want to broadcast propaganda, why not even it out and broadcast Michael Moore's movie too? Don't get me wrong I think both are a waste of time and energy. But whatever happened to objective journalism? Oh yeah, it never existed...
Holy War....You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend. - Richard Jeni
chelktty said this in post #2 : But whatever happened to objective journalism? Oh yeah, it never existed...
This is why I dont take 100 percent of what I read to heart. I try to read as much as I can and try to decipher what the truth is....and even then its hard...
They say that journalists are supposed to be objective...but turn on courttv, fox news, msnbc, etc, and one will find that journalists arent even close to objective. Pathetic!
Of course thats just my opinion....I could be wrong. (Dennis Miller)
"You might be the toughest little whacker. . .but in my world, you're about as worrisome as a cloudy day." (Dutch Dooley)
None of it should be stepped on. Tha't the whole issue.
F-9/11, Stolen Honor to name a couple. Stolen Honor never aired. They showed a program called POW, which was excellent and covered much of the same stuff and added stuff about Bush to make it balanced. Kerry was still showed to be a traitor. Thank God, they didn't cut that part out.
Try and find a copy of Kerry's book, 'The New Soldier'. He had it stopped himself.
Try and find the book 'Unfit for Command' at Barnes and Nobles. You will have to ask the cashier for that one. It's behind the counter like Hustler.
Now that tells me Kerry is not proud of ihis book even though last night he said he was proud of his past and has no regrets at all.
I have a choice to switch the channel. Just ike I do everytime I see Colmes' mug on Fox. I believe the choice should be up to us. We should all stand up to biased media too. Just change the channel. They hear that more than anything else.
"Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those who say this are witless." ~Ayatollah Khomeini
10-19-2004 01:28 PM
