Posted on 04/30/2004 7:01:54 AM PDT by Pyro7480
Sinclair Stations to Boycott 'Nightline' Tribute
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A major television chain, the Sinclair Broadcast Group, will bar its ABC-affiliated stations from airing a planned "Nightline" tribute to fallen U.S. troops in Iraq (news - web sites), saying the program is a political statement disguised as news.
ABC News plans to devote Friday's entire "Nightline" segment to the tribute, with anchor Ted Koppel reading aloud the names of hundreds of fallen American servicemen and women as their photographs are shown.
The network's intentions drew a denunciation from Sinclair, a Baltimore-based owner of 62 television stations in 39 markets reaching roughly 24 percent of U.S. television households.
Sinclair said the "Nightline" segment "appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq."
In a statement posted on its Web site, the broadcast group accused Koppel and his show of seeking to "highlight only one aspect of the war effort and in doing so to influence public opinion against the military action in Iraq."
An ABC News spokeswoman said Sinclair's decision to preempt Friday's "Nightline" on its stations would remove the program in at least seven markets -- St. Louis, Missouri; Columbus, Ohio; Charleston, West Virginia; Pensacola, Florida; Springfield, Massachusetts and Asheville and Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Sticking to its plans, ABC News issued its own statement defending the planned broadcast as "an expression of respect which simply seeks to honor those who have laid down their lives for this country."
In an interview with Internet media report Poynteronline, Koppel himself rejected the notion that he was out to make a political point.
"Just look at these people. Look at their names. And look at their ages. Consider what they've done for you. Honor them," Koppel said. "I truly believe that people will take away from this program the reflection of what they bring to it."
Sinclair's boycott drew a sharp rebuke from U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, a New York Democrat and leading congressional critic of newly relaxed media ownership regulations adopted last year by the Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites).
"The decision by Sinclair ... to keep this program off its stations is being made by a corporation with a political agenda without regard to the wants or needs of its viewers," Hinchey said. "This move may be providing a chilling look into the future if we allow media ownership to be consolidated into fewer and fewer hands."
The Washington-based liberal think tank the Center for American Progress cited campaign contribution reports showing Sinclair executives have donated more than $130,000 to President Bush (news - web sites) and his political allies since 2000.
The network initially said the 30-minute telecast would be limited acknowledging only the 523 U.S. troops killed in combat since the start of the war in March 3002. But on Thursday, ABC said it would expand the program to 40 minutes to include another 200 or more Americans who died as a result of accidents, friendly fire or suicide.
ABC is a unit of the Walt Disney Co.
In one breath they'll do this to pay tribute to the fallen soldiers, in the next, they'll (with varying degrees of subtlety) question whether or not the lives were worth it, and that President Bush is to blame.
OK, now let's flip a few words around and see how this reads:
"The decision by ABC ... to air this program is being made by a corporation with a political agenda without regard to the wants or needs of its viewers," Hinchey said. "This move may be providing a chilling look into the future if we allow media ownership to be consolidated into fewer and fewer hands."
At the Poynter forum, responses are limited to 2000 characters.
I have been on the watch for media bias (mostly to the left) ever since being thunderstruck by the disgusting slant of every medium in... I have been on the watch for media bias (mostly to the left) ever since being thunderstruck by the disgusting slant of every medium in favor of Dr. Elizabeth Morgan back in 1990. I have been thinking about that case a lot recently, because I could not recall another period since when the news coverage was spun with such hurricanic force as these past four days.John Kerry, faced with videotape evidence uncovered by an ABC News reporter, refused to acknowledge that he was untruthful or in the slightest bit misleading when he denied in recent years that he discarded his own medals in his infamous 1971 Vietnam War protest. Instead of attacking the messengers of his latest embarrassment (Brian Ross and Chris Vlasto of ABC News and the New York Times), Kerry went full bore after 'innocent' third party George W. Bush, who had nothing to do with the story.
So what was the focus of the coverage of Kerry's meltdown in the face of Good Morning America's Charles Gibson's questioning? Kerry's illogical, specious claim that Ross, Vlasto, and the Times were "doing the bidding of the Republican National Committee?" No, the well-worn accusations that Bush had "gone AWOL" as a National Guardsman.
To wit: mere hours after the GMA interview had ended on the East Coast and could be digested by responsible writers, the AP story was nonetheless entitled (on Yahoo! News and other websites), "Kerry rejects GOP questions about his medals." "GOP?" No, ABC!
I cannot claim I know what was in the minds of the higher-ups at Sinclair when they first conceived of dumping "The Fallen," but I will tell you what I thought: The news media doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt any longer, and that they shouldn't be able to just say, "Trust us, that's not what we mean. We would never do that. Honest." Sinclair's inquiry to Koppel of 'Why now, why not 9/11' was not out of line, and Koppel -- they allege -- snubbed them. But he talked to Poynter.
IMHO, that says a lot.
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.
From .. "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, Prologue to the Satires," line 201.
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Me, too :} I was expecting to see a green brontosaur.
ABC must be assigned to use this tactic since no-one reads Time magazine anymore.
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