http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/11/news/newsmakers/sinclair_kerry/index.htm?cnn=yes Anti-Kerry film to air in prime-time
Nation's largest TV chain orders all 62 stations to show movie without commercials next week.
October 11, 2004: 12:40 PM EDT
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of the largest chain of television stations in the nation, plans to air a documentary that accuses Sen. John Kerry of betraying American prisoners during the Vietnam War, a newspaper reported Monday.
The network has ordered all 62 of its stations to air "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal" without commercials in prime-time next week, the Washington Post said, just two weeks before the Nov. 2 election.
Sinclair's television group, which includes affiliates of all the major networks, reaches nearly a quarter of all U.S. television households, according to the company's Web site. But the affiliates owned by the major television networks reach a larger percentage of U.S. homes because they are in the largest markets.
A dozen of Sinclair's stations are in the critical swing states of Ohio, Florida, Iowa and Wisconsin.
The company made news in April when it ordered seven of its ABC-affiliated stations not to air a "Nightline" segment that featured a reading of the names of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq; a Sinclair executive called that broadcast "contrary to the public interest."
Calls to Sinclair by CNN/Money were not immediately returned Monday.
Media Matters for America, a liberal watchdog group, has written a letter to Sinclair asking the company to cancel reported plans to air the film between now and the Nov. 2 election, the group said in a statement.
"Sinclair's plan to air anti-Kerry propaganda before the election is an abuse of the public airwaves for what appears to be partisan political purposes," Media Matters CEO David Brock said in the letter.
The letter warned Sinclair that its plan could constitute a violation of broadcast regulations requiring equal time for political candidates, as well as the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, the group said.
Sinclair's top executives include members of the controlling Smith family, who have been strong financial supporters of Bush's campaign, the Post said in its report.
Sinclair executives have given nearly $68,000 in political contributions, 97 percent of it going to Republicans, since the beginning of the year, according to the Los Angeles Times.
According to the report, "Stolen Honor" focuses on Kerry's antiwar testimony to Congress in 1971 and its effect on American POWs in Vietnam, and was produced independently of Sinclair.
The anti-Kerry film states that the senator's testimony hurt the American war effort and undercut morale among the troops.
Sinclair (SBGI: down $0.05 to $7.45, Research, Estimates) shares were little changed on Nasdaq Monday.
