"Liberal Media" to Air Anti-Kerry Film Days Before Election  

Wouldn't this be considered illegally funding a campaign?

CNN has two major on air personalities involved in the Kerry campaign and all of a sudden with this discovery it proves the media is not "liberal".


Mary Mapes is the norm in the media.

Who isn't as important as what they report. I don't care if the pope is doing the broadcast if he has to read from someone else's script.

Let Sinclair air their hit piece. Provided "Fahrenheit 9/11" gets equal, uninterrupted, air time.

sinclair got some notoriety earlier this year from the daily show and others when they refused to air nightline's reading of the names of the dead in iraq. they also require all of their affiliate's news broadcasts to end with the line "we stand with our president 100%."

this is nto new from sinclair. but i do hope there's a special place in hell for anyone at the top authorize this steaming pile without at least giving 90 minutes to the opposite viewpoint.

reminds me of my local video store chain. every copy of farhenheit 911 is bookended by several pro-bush "documentaries" and a documentary covering the "lies" of michael moore. i was kinda stunned by that, but then again, not surprised in the least. can't wait for the local christian coalition to protest outside blockbuster for renting the movie.

whatever. all i know is a dozen friends of a friend in north carolina registered to vote last week in utter anger over bush and his administration. these are first-time, never-cared-about-politics-before voters, people. and i doubt they're alone.

and hey, maybe it'll end up backfiring on sinclair, making people even angrier that sinclair and their ilk would air such tripe. god knows republicans would be marching in the streets if, say, viacom or someone aired f-911 in primetime without commercials.

edit: by the way, sinclair broadcast group has placed a comment on their website, stating that the documentary has not even been filmed yet, and any comments on it or its contents are unsubstantiated. of course, this would hold a little more water had they not pulled their nightline stunt earlier int he year.

they encourage comments to them. i say, screw that - i reckon they have one big fat spam filter waiting for those comments. no, if you have a problem with this, e-mail EVERY ONE OF THEIR ADVERTISERS AND AFFILIATE NETWORKS. when you fight the big companies, there's only one place to target for maximum effect: the wallet. trust me, they'll rethink their stance when they start getting letters from those advertisers...

Is there any movement to boycott the all of the Sinclair stations which plan to air this anti-Kerry propaganda? If not, there should be. A boycott that continues until either Sinclair cancels the broadcast, or provides free equal time for a pro-Kerry or anti-Bush program.

If I can't find such a boycott, I'll be happy to do what I can to start one.

There is indeed a boycott movement that has started:

http://www.boycottsbg.com/

In addition to the Sinclair stations themselves, there's also a link to a list of companies who advertise on Sinclair, along with contact e-mail addresses, so that you can tell these companies that you'll boycott their products until either Sinclair mends its ways, or until they refuse to advertise on Sinclair stations:

http://www.boycottsbg.com/advertisers/default.aspx

Seems a bit extreme considering the pass that CBS got.

Oh well. I don't know why they would run it unless they think there is enough interest in the subject.

Who knows.

i'm not sure cbs is getting such a pass, considering the black eye that 60 minutes now has, rather's career kinda out the window for a while, and how bob schieffer (sp?) said basically their entire news division has lost a lot of credibility over this. but then again, you're right, people aren't rioting in the streets, either.

i think the point is that, time and again, people are shocked when it suddenly dawns on them how having media controlled by a select few is a VERY BAD THING. which network was it that tried to blacklist the dixie chicks? was that clear channel? basically, we've let this happen, and explained it off as "oh well, bigger company x bought smaller company y and all their assets and distribution channels. but who cares? it's the way america works!"

and of course, those big controlling companies don't make decisions based off the common welfare, but the highest profit. period. so you never, ever get the full truth from anyone. that should scare EVERYone.

re: why they'd do it... you're right, who knows? i can say from a little guy's p.o.v., it seems like there's someone batshit f'n loco at the top who loves the current administration and will do everythign in their billioaire power to keep it that way. but i'm pretty far down the foodchain to have anythign but an uneducated guess.

Or could it be that there are so many questions left unanswered or open by Kerry himself that there may be enough interest to make it profitable to air it?

I mean the reality is that you can't get a consistent answer from the Kerry camp. Is it possible that a third party is needed to tell the story believably?

can... feel ... myself ... being... baited.... must resist....

No baiting, just seems that he has left himself open to attack by being so shifty on the facts. He has also made an issue of Vietnam when he doesn't want to be crystal clear on said issue.

Sure his base will swallow it but anyone else is going to question it and want some hard facts or at least a cogent explanation.

He won't even release his military records. Seems to be expecting all to just ignore any questions.

Couldn't he just put it to rest by signing the release form for the military and have a candid press conference? Then we all could be rid of the whole thing.

This is an assinine response. If you can't admit that both sides deserve this type of criticism right before the election then you're a bold faced liar.

Why must you feel baited by nonsensical BS? Just accept if as part of an imperfect world and move on.

Agreed.


Agreed.


Agreed.


Agreed.
Er... oh wait... you were talking about Kerry?
I was talking about Bush.

All things being equal, I would oppose Sinclair's move to show the film. However, all things are not equal.

The media has attacked Bush relentlessly. It has played up bad or even neutral news for months as catastrophic. A prime example is the jobs figure from last Friday. The number was at least roughly in line with expectations (98,000 vs. 120,000) CNN.com and others played up the "less than expected" angle all day. That's much worse than a hit piece, because the story is proported to be impartial when it actually isn't. Subtle media bias is the worst kind.

We've also seen Democratic 527's, who have more subtantial links to their party than do their Republican counterparts, attack Bush mericilessly. While Carville and company run around screaming the Swift Boats are a Bush front group and are spewing lies, the Media Fund, ACT and MoveOn.org are outspending them by a considerable margin. Republicans cannot compete with the number of these groups and their funding.

Democrats have played dirty from day one of this campaign. In fact, Democrats have always been better at the street warfare tactics of politics than Republicans have. From Gore personally ordering the last second DUI story on Bush, to last second voter registration through bussing to the polls, to handing out cigarettes, to conspiring with a billionare to defeat the President, the Democrats know how to play dirty. Look at the canvassing boards in Florida in 2000. Many of the disputed counties were controlled by Democrats. And somehow it was a Republican conspiracy to steal the election?

The double standard here is amazing. Democrats can be tied to countless 527s, accept millions from "the rich", play host to Michael Moore and his lie-filled sack of movie, make statements that are racist (Senator Byrd anyone?)...and get a free pass every time. Meanwhile, Republican's statements are pounced on by the media at every opportunity. Republicans are tools of the rich, racist, war mongers, facists and sexists.

Things are not equal. Sinclair should air whatever it wants.

Stop with the name calling, already.

This thread is about Kerry, no? Am I allowed to post here, if I so choose?

Have you EVER heard me say (more precisely, read any post of mine) that one party or the other is NOT open to criticism?

I will answer for you to expedite the conversation: NO.

But once again, we are talking about Kerry in this thread, or do words no longer carry a specific meaning, so that Kerry means Bush?

Just to accentuate what SDW said:



Scientific analysis of the political coverage by the media:

http://www.mediatenor.com/index1.html

It is pretty sad.

Bush has done exactly what I outlined. Are you behind in your reading?

Go away, small minded one.

You are such an ass. I provided a link to their site so that, if you are interested you could explore what they do.

Talk about knee-jerk syndrome.

Hey, Naples...they're his statements. Who's small minded here?

The verbatim quote from Sinclair's Mark Hyman, from this morning on CNN ...


Reporting unemployment statistics is the same as running free commercials from rabid partisans. See where we're going with this?

Pigs ...

Again, let Sinclair run their Swift Boat Liars and POW Liars hour long political ad. I don't even care if it is considered an illegal corporate campaign contribution.

Let CBS run "Fahrenheit 9/11" uninterrupted the following night.

Naples has about as much chance of changing his dishonest post as Bush has of changing his dishonest war.

Birds of a feather.

Some people just don't believe that lying is wrong. They just don't believe so.

I agree 100%. If the media weren't so biased, they would be honestly reporting such tepid jobs growth so far into a recovery as the genuinely bad news it is. They would be reporting that jobs growth hasn't even kept up with population growth since the recovery began, to say nothing of the failure to make up for job losses before and during the actual recession. They would point out that much of the job growth that is happening is in the public sector, at all levels of government. They would be emphasizing that healthy jobs growth would average about 300k per month, and that the economists' expectation of 150k is already rather pessimistic.

But alas, the media all feels a need to be "fair and balanced" before being objective.

Here's an online petition at democrats.org that you can sign to protest against Sinclair:

http://www.democrats.org/action/200410120001.html

And here's a list of the Sinclair affiliates that you can to voice your protest:

http://www.democrats.org/sinclair/index.html#states

I find it amazing that so many here endorse censorship.

Nick

I agree that Bush has done everything you accused Kerry of, vis a vis military records.

Prove otherwise, with links to something besides right-wing tinfoil toupee sites, please...

So what...you guys aren't smart enough to figure out what it is?

I find it amazing how many people don't understand what censorship is.

Protesting misuse of public airwaves for partisan purposes in not censorship. Refusing to buy milk at the local 7-11 because they sell Playboy is not censorship. And -- a reminder often needed in internet forums -- using your own freedom of expression to criticize what someone else has expressed is not censorship either.

You have wierd definition of censorship, trump. Here we have a Media-group dictating that all of their channels have to show this crap, I mean self-produced political content. While they themselves have been censoring other political content on several occasions...

This is how things used to work in Soviet and Nazi-Germany... Good luck....

I've not said that protesting this is censorshi. I'm saying not allowing it to be played on the channels IS censorship.

If you declared that Playboy couldn't be printed on the presses that they own, that is advocating censorship. People here are declaring that this program shouldn't be run by the group that leases the airwaves and owns the channels.

Nick

You have a strange definition of ownership. This "media-group" owns the respective stations that will be showing the broadcast. How do you "dictate" to what you already own?

Do you dictate your car to drive you to work?

Do you dictate to your brush to clean your teeth?

You must be dizzy from the spin.

Nick

yes, makes me feel important.