Immediate Action Required

AMERICAblog reports that Sinclair Broadcast Group has plans to preempt its regularly scheduled prime-time programming days before the election to air an anti-Kerry film that attacks his military record. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because you might remember them from the refusal to air Nightline’s broadcast featuring the names of all of our fallen troops.

According to this report, Sinclair’s refusal to air the Nightline episode was:

not the first time that Sinclair's conservative political leanings — 98 percent of its 2004 political contributions have gone to Republicans (MediaChannel.org, 4/29/04)— have led the company into journalistic controversy. In February, a Sinclair news crew was sent to Iraq to cover the “good news” that was allegedly going unreported in the rest of the media (Baltimore Sun, 2/18/04). And shortly after the September 11 attacks, Sinclair executives required stations to air editorial statements in support of the Bush administration (Extra!, 11-12/01).

AMERICAblog’s John Aravosis issues the following call to action:

We need to know which of our local stations is in bed with the president and this right-wing zealot and we need to destroy them. I'm talking get every single advertiser to leave those stations. Publish the advertisers email and phone and contact them, demanding that they stop funneling their money to partisan un-American TV zealots who are trying to throw our election. I suspect most advertisers will not like hearing about this story.

Let’s get cooking.