-V-
10/24/04, 01:18 pm
this is the most thorough article I've seen yet on the Sinclair media story.
LA Times, 10/24/04
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&e=3&u=/latimests/20041024/ts_latimes/sinclairsgrowthmatchedbycriticism
Here's the highlights:
...not only was Sinclair getting the stations for a "small fraction of their value," but the commission found that the company, operating under an agreement merely to manage the stations, had instead effectively taken control of the outlets before the purchase.
...
The agency (FCC) fined the company $40,000 for violating FCC rules. Then it let Sinclair buy the stations anyway.
...
Under President and Chief Executive David D. Smith, the conservative-leaning, publicity-shy Sinclair has grown from its modest beginnings by pushing the limits of government regulations. The company has drawn notice for aggressively expanding its control over multiple outlets in a single market, sometimes in ways its critics call underhanded, although the FCC generally has gone along.
...
In the last two years, Sinclair has started to take advantage of its reach with controversial programming decisions such as centralized newscasts intercut with right-skewing commentary, and banning its seven ABC affiliates from showing Ted Koppel's roll call of military dead in Iraq (news - web sites), deeming it an overly political edition of "Nightline."
But its most recent move — a plan to air a film attacking Sen. John F. Kerry (news, bio, voting record) days before the Nov. 2 election — catapulted it into the midst of a hotly contested presidential race.
...
"This administration has significantly loosened the media consolidation rules and Sinclair, having benefited from this, is now returning the favor," said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, who heads the Media Access Project, a longtime company critic.
Sinclair now owns or controls 62 TV stations, including affiliates of Fox, ABC, CBS and NBC, as well as WB and UPN.
...
Sinclair's brick-and-black-glass five-story headquarters stands out on the horizon.... A few feet away sits the local headquarters of the Bush-Cheney campaign, to which Sinclair's owners and executives have contributed. This election cycle, Sinclair executives have given nearly $68,000, 97% of it to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which documents campaign contributions. In other years they have given more, as in the 2000 campaigns, when they donated nearly $178,000, 98% of it to Republicans.
During Maryland's last gubernatorial election in 2002, a company formed by J. Duncan Smith, a Sinclair officer and David Smith's brother, provided free executive helicopter services to the Republican candidate and eventual winner, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.
Ehrlich, it turned out, was one of three congressmen who a year earlier had prodded the FCC to move more quickly on requests by Sinclair for approval to purchase a group of television stations.
...
He (Smith) has also had less celebrated moments. He was arrested on suspicion of soliciting a prostitute in Baltimore in 1996, according to published reports. And during the 1970s, he was a partner in a company that his co-partner said was raided for distributing 8mm pornographic movies. Though Smith has claimed an aversion to publicity — "We would tend to maintain as much anonymity as we can," he told the Baltimore Sun in 1995 ...and jokingly underscored his aggressiveness by keeping a toy shark and rattlesnake on his desk.
...
"From Day One, [Sinclair's] approach has been to see what they can get away with," said Schwartzman, of the Media Access Project. "And to the frustration of many of us they have been extraordinarily successful. The FCC has repeatedly let them off the hook despite blatant violations and a policy of superficial efforts at compliance."
"The reason why some on the left characterized us as conservatives is we run stories that others in the media spike," he said. One example he singled out at the time was a news conference by a group, little known at the time, that called itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Over the summer, it emerged as one of Kerry's most powerful critics, pouring millions of dollars into ads attacking him. The Swift boat group, whose claims have been largely discredited by eyewitnesses and military records, has since allied itself with former Vietnam POWs who appear in the anti-Kerry film "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," (which Sinclair had planned to air in its 90 minute commercial free broadcast).
...
Hyman anchors daily commentaries called "The Point," which are so pointed that some Sinclair stations have balked at airing them and had to be forced by headquarters to do so, according to current and former employees who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Hyman's recent commentaries lambasted Kerry every night for two weeks.
LA Times, 10/24/04
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&e=3&u=/latimests/20041024/ts_latimes/sinclairsgrowthmatchedbycriticism
Here's the highlights:
...not only was Sinclair getting the stations for a "small fraction of their value," but the commission found that the company, operating under an agreement merely to manage the stations, had instead effectively taken control of the outlets before the purchase.
...
The agency (FCC) fined the company $40,000 for violating FCC rules. Then it let Sinclair buy the stations anyway.
...
Under President and Chief Executive David D. Smith, the conservative-leaning, publicity-shy Sinclair has grown from its modest beginnings by pushing the limits of government regulations. The company has drawn notice for aggressively expanding its control over multiple outlets in a single market, sometimes in ways its critics call underhanded, although the FCC generally has gone along.
...
In the last two years, Sinclair has started to take advantage of its reach with controversial programming decisions such as centralized newscasts intercut with right-skewing commentary, and banning its seven ABC affiliates from showing Ted Koppel's roll call of military dead in Iraq (news - web sites), deeming it an overly political edition of "Nightline."
But its most recent move — a plan to air a film attacking Sen. John F. Kerry (news, bio, voting record) days before the Nov. 2 election — catapulted it into the midst of a hotly contested presidential race.
...
"This administration has significantly loosened the media consolidation rules and Sinclair, having benefited from this, is now returning the favor," said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, who heads the Media Access Project, a longtime company critic.
Sinclair now owns or controls 62 TV stations, including affiliates of Fox, ABC, CBS and NBC, as well as WB and UPN.
...
Sinclair's brick-and-black-glass five-story headquarters stands out on the horizon.... A few feet away sits the local headquarters of the Bush-Cheney campaign, to which Sinclair's owners and executives have contributed. This election cycle, Sinclair executives have given nearly $68,000, 97% of it to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which documents campaign contributions. In other years they have given more, as in the 2000 campaigns, when they donated nearly $178,000, 98% of it to Republicans.
During Maryland's last gubernatorial election in 2002, a company formed by J. Duncan Smith, a Sinclair officer and David Smith's brother, provided free executive helicopter services to the Republican candidate and eventual winner, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.
Ehrlich, it turned out, was one of three congressmen who a year earlier had prodded the FCC to move more quickly on requests by Sinclair for approval to purchase a group of television stations.
...
He (Smith) has also had less celebrated moments. He was arrested on suspicion of soliciting a prostitute in Baltimore in 1996, according to published reports. And during the 1970s, he was a partner in a company that his co-partner said was raided for distributing 8mm pornographic movies. Though Smith has claimed an aversion to publicity — "We would tend to maintain as much anonymity as we can," he told the Baltimore Sun in 1995 ...and jokingly underscored his aggressiveness by keeping a toy shark and rattlesnake on his desk.
...
"From Day One, [Sinclair's] approach has been to see what they can get away with," said Schwartzman, of the Media Access Project. "And to the frustration of many of us they have been extraordinarily successful. The FCC has repeatedly let them off the hook despite blatant violations and a policy of superficial efforts at compliance."
"The reason why some on the left characterized us as conservatives is we run stories that others in the media spike," he said. One example he singled out at the time was a news conference by a group, little known at the time, that called itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Over the summer, it emerged as one of Kerry's most powerful critics, pouring millions of dollars into ads attacking him. The Swift boat group, whose claims have been largely discredited by eyewitnesses and military records, has since allied itself with former Vietnam POWs who appear in the anti-Kerry film "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," (which Sinclair had planned to air in its 90 minute commercial free broadcast).
...
Hyman anchors daily commentaries called "The Point," which are so pointed that some Sinclair stations have balked at airing them and had to be forced by headquarters to do so, according to current and former employees who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Hyman's recent commentaries lambasted Kerry every night for two weeks.