Documentary on Kerry's anti-war stance draws threats of boycott

From staff and wire reports

Threatened with a shareholder revolt, Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. says it will not broadcast in its entirety a documentary critical of Sen. John Kerry's anti-war activities. The company said it will include parts of the 42-minute film in a news special that will air Friday on most of its stations, including KBSI Channel 23 in Cape Girardeau

The program will air at 7 p.m. Officials at KBSI refused to comment on the program Wednesday. The local station referred all inquiries to its corporate office in Maryland, where Sinclair Broadcast officials on Tuesday had announced how the film would be used in the news special.

Company officials made the announcement after shareholders earlier this week challenged Sinclair's plans to air the film, saying the controversial broadcast may hurt their investment. Critics had called for a boycott of both national and local businesses that advertise on Sinclair stations.

Some advertisers have been besieged with e-mails opposing the program.

Tom Neumeyer, chairman of the local Democratic Party in Cape Girardeau County, objects to the program but isn't involved in the national boycott effort.

"It is propaganda," he said Wednesday. "People are really upset about this nonsense."

Neumeyer accused the broadcasting company of having a "vendetta" against Kerry.

Parts of the film "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," will be shown during a program examining the use of documentaries to influence elections, Sinclair officials said Tuesday. The news special will discuss allegations about Kerry's anti-Vietnam war activities in the early 1970s raised by a number of former POWs.

Sinclair Broadcast Group, the owner of 62 television stations that reach a quarter of U.S. households, has been criticized for ordering the stations to pre-empt regular programming to air the show.

"A POW Story: Politics, Pressure and the Media," will examine the "role of the media in filtering the information contained in these documentaries, allegations of media bias by media organizations that ignore or filter legitimate news and the attempts by candidates and other organizations to influence media coverage," the company said in a statement.

It will air Friday on 40 of the company's stations, including many in key swing states for the presidential election. The company has several stations in some television markets, but said it would broadcast the news special only on a single station in each television market to minimize the interruption of normally scheduled programming.

Sinclair fired its Washington bureau chief Monday after he publicly criticized the company's plans to broadcast the controversial film.

"We have not ceded, and will not in the future cede, control of our news reporting to any outside organization or political group," said Joe DeFeo, Sinclair's vice president of news.

The Democratic National Committee has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, arguing that the broadcast should be considered an illegal in-kind contribution to the Bush campaign.

Sinclair said executives met recently with senior Kerry campaign officials, but the campaign has declined to participate in the program.

Dr. Russell Renka, a political science professor at Southeast Missouri State University, dismissed the invitation to Kerry as disingenuous.

"It is inviting you to your own lynching," he said.

Renka said the program amounts to anti-Kerry propaganda. "This has nothing to do with documentaries and news," he said.

Media Matters, a media advocacy group, announced it is underwriting the costs of a shareholder action demanding equal time for opposing views.

Eighteen senators, all Democrats, wrote last week to the Federal Communications Commission to ask it to investigate Sinclair's plans. The agency declined to intervene.

New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi, also a Democrat, sent a letter expressing concern to Sinclair on behalf of the state's pension fund, which owns shares in the broadcasting company.

Sinclair stock has dropped to less than $7 a share from a high of more than $15 a share in January.

Southeast Missourian staff writer Mark Bliss contributed to this report