Freedom of the Press?

October 19, 2004 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Current Affairs 

Sinclair Broadcasting has fired a reporter and chief of it’s news department’s Washington bureau for making comments in the media critical of Sinclair’s decision to air an anti-John Kerry “documentary” just a week before the election. (Yahoo News Story)

In case you’ve missed the story to date, here’s a recap. Sinclair Broadcasting is controlled by right-wing executives. They’re highly critical of John Kerry. They have ordered their 62 broadcast stations to pre-empt programming (in some cases major network programming) in prime-time next week to air the documentary “Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal”. This documentary is a scathing account of John Kerry’s anti-war activities after returning from Vietnam in the early 70’s. It’s being called by some as the right-wing equivalent to “Fahrenheit 9/11”.

Here, Sinclair has clearly crossed the line. Most journalists are careful not to criticize their news organization’s owners, but in many cases when they feel the need to do so they do. Usually, they aren’t fired. In this case, Sinclair took retribution against one of it’s objective news reporters for not toeing the company line in the election. That is wrong.

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Side note: Can you remember when campaigns used to talk about how good THEIR candidate was, not how bad the OTHER candidate is? I think I vaguely remember this from my childhood, but I’m not sure.

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