Remember the ruckus that the conservatives raised about the advertising that Michael Moore planned to do for 'Fahrenheit 9/11?' How the commercials were deemed to be 'campaign commercials for Kerry' and a violation of campaign advertising laws?

Well, those were nothing compared to this:

The conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group, whose television outlets reach nearly a quarter of the nation's homes with TV, is ordering its stations to preempt regular programming just days before the Nov. 2 election to air a film that attacks Sen. John F. Kerry's activism against the Vietnam War, network and station executives familiar with the plan said Friday.

Sinclair's programming plan, communicated to executives in recent days and coming in the thick of a close and intense presidential race, is highly unusual even in a political season that has been marked by media controversies.

Sinclair has told its stations — many of them in political swing states such as Ohio and Florida — to air "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," sources said. The film, funded by Pennsylvania veterans and produced by a veteran and former Washington Times reporter, features former POWs accusing Kerry — a decorated Navy veteran turned war protester — of worsening their ordeal by prolonging the war. Sinclair will preempt regular prime-time programming from the networks to show the film, which may be classified as news programming, according to TV executives familiar with the plan.

Executives at Sinclair did not return calls seeking comment, but the Kerry campaign accused the company of pressuring its stations to influence the political process.

"It's not the American way for powerful corporations to strong-arm local broadcasters to air lies promoting a political agenda," said David Wade, a spokesman for the Democratic nominee's campaign. "It's beyond yellow journalism; it's a smear bankrolled by Republican money, and I don't think Americans will stand for it."

Sinclair stations are spread throughout the country, in major markets that include Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Las Vegas; its only California station is in Sacramento. Fourteen of the 62 stations the company either owns or programs are in the key political swing states of Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where the presidential election is being closely fought.

Station and network sources said they have been told the Sinclair stations — which include affiliates of Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, as well as WB and UPN — will be preempting regular programming for one hour between Oct. 21 and Oct. 24, depending on the city. The airing of "Stolen Honor" will be followed by a panel discussion, which Kerry will be asked to join, thus potentially satisfying fairness regulations, the sources said.

Kerry campaign officials said they had been unaware of Sinclair's plans to air the film, and said Kerry had not received an invitation to appear.



You may remember Sinclair as the broadcast group that refused to air the Nightline program that ran the names of American military killed in Iraq.

This is an unprecedented use of commercial airwaves - airwaves that belong to us - for blatantly political purposes, and a clear violation of campaign advertising restrictions. It must not be allowed to stand.

A list of all Sinclair stations can be found at www.sbgi.net/business/markets/all.shtml on their corporate website. While TBTM usually encourages our readers to contact the stations themselves, Sinclair is simply too politically motivated at this point for contacting them to do much good.

So this time, we urge anyone who has a Sinclair outlet in their area to write their local papers and contact Sinclair's competitors to call attention to this on a local level. If enough pressure is brought to bear from the bottom up, individual outlets may be persuaded to pass on running this piece of anti-Kerry propaganda.

Do not let them get away with this. Stop it today. Thank you.



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