Posted on 10/15/2004 1:30:46 PM PDT by Cableguy
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry's campaign Friday morning formally requested equal time to respond to Sinclair stations' planned airings of "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," a documentary critical of Sen. Kerry's Vietnam-era antiwar activities, before the Nov. 2 election.
Industry sources said Sinclair has directed all of its 62 TV stations in 39 markets to pre-empt regular programming to air the documentary over several days beginning Oct. 21. Despite intense protest by Democrats, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell told reporters Thursday that the agency doesn't have the authority to block the broadcasts.
But in an Oct. 15 letter to Sinclair President and CEO David Smith, Sen. Kerry's campaign charged that the FCC's equal time obligations require Sinclair to give Kerry campaign supporters air time to respond to the documentary.
"Please consider this a request that each Sinclair station that airs the documentary provide supporters of the Kerry-Edwards campaign with a similar amount of time on that station before the election at a time where an audience of similar size can be expected to be viewing the station," said Marc Elias, general counsel for the Kerry-Edwards campaign, in the letter.
Bona fide news shows are generally exempt from FCC equal time obligations. But the Kerry campaign argued that the documentary does not meet the requirements for an exemption.
"The content of the program will not be controlled by Sinclair or an independent journalistic organization," the campaign said. "The program instead is intended to be an attack on Senator Kerry and thus is not the result of decisions made on the basis of newsworthiness."
In a statement on the company's Web site, Sinclair characterized the presentation as a "special news event" and said it has already offered Sen. Kerry equal time to respond.
Also on Friday, Equity Broadcasting announced that its independent station WPXS-TV in St. Louis will carry the ABC programming that Sinclair pre-empts for the documentary. Sinclair owns ABC affiliate KDNL-TV in St. Louis. Equity officials said Sinclair plans to air the Kerry documentary on KDNL between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Oct. 22.
Oh, that woman.
They OFFERED him time ON THE SHOW!
Dan
PS -- no offense to the Real Women here.
AMEN
Why do I hear "Matchmaker, Matchmaker" from Fiddler On The Roof playing in my head? ;)
I'm all vaclempt!
I think they have flip flopped on it & now demand time to air something produced by them. I would think the piece ABC is planning to show will fit that bill.
Kerry should get equal time just like Bush got equal time for ABC's Nightline hit piece or PBS's Frontline hit piece or CBS's Fake Document piece or the hundreds of others over the last 3 years. Does Kerry realize you don't get equal time for "News" programs. Ha
Kerry's had since August to respond with anything substantive to the Swift Boat Vets' ad. He hasn't.
LOL, that's all, just LOL.
So let them go on FIRST.
What does BTTT mean?
Wait a minute...hold the presses...didn't Sinclair OFFER Kerry rebuttal time? I could've sworn I read that here on FR...
I thought the equal time policy expired a few years ago.
If I were the CEO of Sinclair Broadcasting, I would tell John Kerry that he can have five minutes after the airing in which to answer the claims made in Stolen Valor. That the time will not be given to Kerry surrogates. It will not be given to John Edwards. It must be used by John Kerry himself as he is the subject of the film. And he must answer questions posed to him by individuals who appeared in the film, and that he will be cut off if he tap dances around the questions or simply makes a speech. He must answer the questions and addressed the issues raised.
Further, I would state that if John Kerry rejects this format, I will air five minutes of those who appeared in the film Stolen Valor asking questions followed by fifteen seconds showing an empty chair with an narrator stating, "John Kerry refused our offer to appear to answer the questions of these veterans." This would repeat until the five minutes elapsed.
Have any of you realized that the ABC News team is acting in coordination to try to rebut the Swift Boat videos that will be airing on Monday Night Football? Just as they(Swifties) released information regarding the new commercials, they immediately go into defense mode in order to assasinate the characters of the vets before the commercials are aired. Is it any coincidence that the swift boat issue came up last night?
I can't believe how much these media programs are in the tank for Kerry. This is unbelievable.
The Halperin memo makes more and more sense as each day passes.
Sorry, he already had his "equal time" last night when Frightline and Teddy Floppel ran that bogus propaganda left wing sh*t! Too bad that John O'Neill stood up to Floppel and made HIM look bad. LOLOLOLOLOLOL!
Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Got to sign that 1-8-0!
"Senator Kerry has not signed form SF-180, which would release his military personnel record to the public.
"By releasing his military personnel form, Senator Kerry could prove all his critics to be liars, if that's what they are."
...across the bottom of the screen.
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