Monday, October 11, 2004

And their knickers are nicely knotted



The Sinclair Broadcast Group is going to run a program on John Kerry's antiwar activities based on a documentary titled Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal, produced by Carlton Sherwood:
[a] highly-decorated Marine Corps veteran [who] served in Vietnam and then returned home and covered John Kerry's anti-war activities for the Philadelphia Bulletin. In 1980, while at the Gannett News Service, he won a Pulitzer for an investigative report on a multi-million dollar misappropriation of funds by Vatican officials and a small order of monks in Pennsylvania. He later won a Peabody Award for his investigative work in television.
Hmm, legitimate reporter, important subject, no phony documents, what's not to like? Lurch wouldn't have anything to hide, would he?
The Kerry campaign has gone ballistic about "Stolen Honor," a documentary featuring interviews with former Vietnam POWs who recall their Vietnamese captors using Mr. Kerry's 1971 antiwar statements as instruments of intimidation and torture. Kerry spokesman Chad Clanton says the campaign will ask supporters to stage boycotts and demonstrations against the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which plans to air "Stolen Honor" on all of its 62 TV stations in prime-time just two weeks before the election. Democratic Senators Ted Kennedy and Dianne Feinstein are already writing a letter demanding the Federal Communications Commission investigate whether Sinclair is violating fairness guidelines and doing the bidding of the Bush campaign.

I must have missed Ted and Di's letters about Rathergate. Hmmm, I guess a little free speech must be painful to the Lurchster. But why's that? I thought he was proud of what he had done?

Bill Hobbs has more thoughts at the original link and you can watch excerpts of the documentary at the title link, as well as purchase copies. You might also want to drop a line to the folks at Sinclair (comments@sbgi.net) telling them how much you appreciate a media source that will dig for real facts. To find out if they have a station in your area, go here.