**SINCLAIR INFO THREAD** (the ugly truth etc.)

[G_j]

Sinclair Contact Info & Activism:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1022519

===============================
Broadcaster's Own 'Political Agenda' Plays Part in Nightline Snub

By Timothy Karr
MediaChannel.org
http://www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/affalert187.shtml


<snip>
MediaChannel.org has learned that the political leanings of Sinclair executives also may have played a part in the company's decision to block the popular ABC news program. In 2004, 98 percent of Sinclair's political contributions have gone to GOP candidates.
<snip>

According to The Center for Responsive Politics, an organization devoted to tracking political contributions by individuals, PACs and corporations, Sinclair executives give overwhelmingly to Republican causes and candidates. Of the top twenty TV and Radio companies to make political contributions in 2004, Sinclair Broadcasting Group, is among the most conservative, giving 98 percent of its $65,434 in political contributions to GOP candidates.

By comparison, Clear Channel Communications, the notoriously conservative radio colossus run by President Bush's longtime Texas cronies Tom and Steve Hicks has given only 75 percent of its 2004 contributions to Republicans; Democratic candidates have received the remaining 25 percent of Clear Channel's political largesse.

MediaChannel has contacted Sinclair CEO and President David Smith for comment on the company's political track record. Smith has yet to reply. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Smith personally gave $2,000, the maximum individual contribution, to President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign.

<snip>
The broadcasting giant reported first quarter preliminary results for net broadcast revenues reached $158.3 million. The Q1 increase over last year -- about $4 million more than the company expected -- came in part from $1.3 million in additional political advertising revenues in key election states such as Ohio, Florida, West Virginia, Illinois and Maine, where Sinclair owns stations.
<snip>
----------------------
Deep Inside Sinclair:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/july-dec03/newscentral_12-11.html

More local newscasts are increasingly broadcast from the same location in Hunt Valley, Md. Terence Smith goes inside the studios of Sinclair Broadcast Group, which has been criticized for its consolidation that has taken the local out of local news.


------------------------
The Death of Local News

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15718

<snip>Tune into the evening news on Madison, Wisconsin's Fox TV affiliate and behold the future of local news. In the program's concluding segment, "The Point," Mark Hyman rants against peace activists ("wack-jobs"), the French ("cheese-eating surrender monkeys"), progressives ("loony left") and the so-called liberal media, usually referred to as the "hate-America crowd" or the "Axis of Drivel." Colorful, if creatively anemic, this is TV's version of talk radio, with the precisely tanned Hyman playing a second-string Limbaugh.

Fox 47's right-wing rants may be the future of hometown news, but – believe it or not – it's not the program's blatant ideological bias that is most worrisome. Here's the real problem: Hyman isn't the station manager, a local crank, or even a journalist. He is the Vice President of Corporate Communications for the station's owner, the Sinclair Broadcast Group. And this segment of the local news isn't exactly local. Hyman's commentary is piped in from the home office in Baltimore, MD, and mixed in with locally-produced news. Sinclair aptly calls its innovative strategy "NewsCentral" - it is very likely to spell the demise of local news as we know it. "

-----------------------------------
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04080/288764.stm

She's not a reporter -- she just plays one on TV
Saturday, March 20, 2004

By Dennis Roddy

Karen Ryan was happy to hear my voice.

"At least you called to ask if I'm a real person," she said. After a week of being called everything from an actress to a hooker, a little self-doubt was inevitable.

snip....

She ended each report with, "In Washington, this is Karen Ryan reporting." That's how she closed a spot touting the Bush administration's new Medicare prescription package, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But this is an election year. Someone noticed the self-promotional spot and, in no time, the General Accounting Office opened an investigation and the public howled indignantly.

The focus of public fury is, as usual, the least blameworthy target. Ryan has been called a phony. One newspaper editorial told people that, if they see her, don't believe her. Chris Matthews, onetime chief of staff for Tip O'Neill, used the term "hooker." When Tip O'Neill's fixer calls you a hooker, that's got to hurt.

snip...

On KMAX in Sacramento, she told viewers of the 9 p.m. show about how frequent flier miles were becoming easier to use, and interviewed a spokesman from Capital One, a credit card vendor, to show how. In Atlanta, WAGA aired her report on the new Medicare prescription benefits program. Viewers in Tampa turned to WTSP and learned why money spent now on seeing a doctor saves money later. In Pittsburgh, WPGH, the Sinclair Broadcasting station that fired much of its news staff in favor of feeds from a centralized newsroom in Baltimore, offered Karen Ryan on Aug. 16.
-------

SINCLAIR AIRS FAKE NEWS BROADCASTS PRODUCED BY BUSH ADMINISTRATION: In March, it was discovered that the Bush Administration was producing "television news stories, written and paid for by the government, which have the appearance of legitimate news segments delivered by independent reporters," and distributing them to local newscasts as a way of promoting administration policies – including its ill-conceived Medicare prescription drug law. On the broadcasts, a public relations professional named Karen Ryan pretended to be a reporter. Among the stations which aired the administration propaganda as news: WPGH in Pittsburgh "the Sinclair Broadcasting station that fired much of its news staff in favor of feeds from a centralized newsroom in Baltimore."

SINCLAIR REQUIRES JOURNALISTS TO READ PRO-BUSH STATEMENTS: In September 2001, Sinclair Broadcasting required its affiliates to air messages "conveying full support" for the Bush administration. At a Baltimore affiliate, WBFF "officials required news and sports anchors, even a weather forecaster, to read the messages, "which included statements such as " wants you to know that we stand 100% behind our President." Several WBFF staffers objected on the grounds that reading the statements would "erode their reputations as objective journalists" because it made them appear to be "endorsing specific government actions."

------------------
Sinclair's Gasbag

http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/extra/archives/000857.html

You may have heard of Sinclair Broadcast Group recently. They're the right-wing TV station owners who refused to air ABC's "Nightline" when it showed the images of American soldiers killed in Iraq. (Their CEO, David Smith, also has an odd way of showing his support for family values, but that's not really relevant, is it?)
Now Smith's hatchet man, Mark Hyman, is the source of the newest far-right attack against John Kerry's record in Vietnam. Get this: Hyman is attacking Kerry because he had the termerity to shoot and kill a Viet Cong guerrilla who'd been firing on the young lieutenant's fellow American troops.

Defend American lives -- how dare he! The fact that Kerry's military superiors saw fit to award him one of our highest medals, the Silver Star, isn't important. Nor is the fact that -- as the after-action report on the February 1969 incident clearly states -- Kerry's boat was under heavy small arms fire and nearly stuck by a rocket.

Never mind that at the very moment Kerry was under a deadly assault, a young George W. Bush was half the world away, training for the coveted National Guard gig he got with the help of his congressman Daddy's rich friends.

..more...
--------------------
List Of Political Donations of Sinclair Board and Staff
(major donations to the Republican party)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1498443&mesg_id=1498443&page=
------------------
employee list and compensation info

http://www.edgar-online.com/lycos/quotecom/people/companypeople.asp?cik=912752
------------------

The Directors and Officers of Sinclair Broadcast Group,
stocks, investments, other misc. background info
(lots of information here!)

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/912752/000110465904009785/a04-4166_1def14a.htm#Proposal1
-------------------

List of Stations:
http://www.sbgi.net/business/news.shtml



=============================================
groups fighting Sinclair:
(very incomplete list, needs contributions)

www.sinclairwatch.net
www.sinclairwatch.org
-------------


How to Contact the FCC
http://www.fcc.gov/contacts.html

To Contact the Commissioners via E-mail

Chairman Michael K. Powell: [e-mail]
Commissioner Kathleen Q. Abernathy: [e-mail]
Commissioner Michael J. Copps: [e-mail]
Commissioner Kevin J. Martin: [e-mail]
Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein: [e-mail]


To Obtain Information via E-mail

General information, inquiries & complaints: [e-mail]
Freedom of Information Act requests: [e-mail]
Comments on FCC Internet services: [e-mail]
Elections & political candidate matters: [e-mail]


To Obtain Information via Telephone

1-888-225-5322 (1-888-CALL FCC) Voice: toll-free
1-888-835-5322 (1-888-TELL FCC) TTY: toll-free
[phone] TTY: toll
[phone] FAX
[phone] FAX on Demand
[phone] Elections & political candidate matters
FCC Phone Directory



***THANKS to DUers for much of this info! :-)
==========================================

[Hokie]

Great post on Sinclair

The own two stations in my area (Fox & ABC). They are atrocious.

[Catt03]

1. great research...thanks

Now we need to use it

[DesEtoiles]

2. Sinclair CEO David Smith arrested for prostitution

Broadcasting official charged in sex stakeout

Sinclair president, woman arrested in company car

   SUN STAFFPeter Hermann

Published on August 15, 1996
© 1996- The Baltimore Sun

The president of Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., which owns the local Fox television affiliate, was arrested Tuesday night and charged with committing a perverted sex act in a company-owned Mercedes, city police said. David Deniston Smith, 45, of the 800 block of Hillstead Drive in Timonium, who also is Sinclair's chief executive, was arrested in an undercover sting at Read and St. Paul streets, a downtown corner frequented by prostitutes, Baltimore police said yesterday.

Smith and Mary DiPaulo, 31, were charged with committing unnatural and perverted sex act.

(more -- snip)

[Mr E McSquare]

4. mmmmmmm....

un-natural and perverted sex.
Yummy!

[mzmolly]

3. Bookmarked this one ! Thanks

:hi:

[gauguin57]

5. Make sure to tell David Smith when you email him that you hope he likes

having his prostitution arrest being splashed across the MSM!

[KittyWampus]

6. Sinclair Airs Fake News Broadcast Produced By Bush Administration?

FAKE NEWS?

Where is the outrage?

Why did CBS get lambasted?

[WEagle]

10. I remember this story

but I never made the Sinclair connection.

outrageous

[G_j]

17. FAKE NEWS

I know, I was speechless.

:shrug:

[AnIndependentTexan]

7. Information on Mark Hyman

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1023002&mesg_id=1023002

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22859-2004Sep...

"Members of the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth say the report vindicates their claim that Kerry didn't show the kind of valor that merits a Silver Star. The after-action report was obtained from the Navy archives by syndicated TV commentator Mark Hyman of 'The Point.' A Navy official confirmed its authenticity."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/006291.html

SINCLAIR PRODUCES CENTRALIZED RIGHT-WING CONTENT FOR 'LOCAL STATIONS': In a controversial business practice, Sinclair Broadcasting has fired much of the staff for the local affiliates it owns, instead producing content for its local stations from a central facility outside Baltimore which it then airs on "local" news broadcasts. The centralized content features nightly commentary by Sinclair corporate communications chief Mark Hyman. Hyman regularly refers to the French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys," the so-called liberal media as the "hate-America crowd," and progressives as "the lonely left" On one recent commentary, Hyman called members of Congress who voted against a recent resolution affirming the righteousness of the Iraq war "unpatriotic politicians who hate our military." You can see all of Hyman's commentaries this month HERE. (Read more from American Progress about the problems of media consolidation.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
http://thecounterpoint.blogspot.com /

It takes a lot to shock us at “The Counterpoint.” There’s very little that Mark Hyman can come up with that seems outlandish or beyond the pale when compared to his typical outing. So it’s always quite the event when he manages to take his rhetorical bathysphere to new and uncharted ethical lows.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
http://liberalmediaconspiracy.blogspot.com/2004_04_25_liberalmediaconspiracy_archive.html

What about Mark Hyman, the host of "The Point", a Rush-wing editorial presentation regularly shown on all Sinclair stations? I understand that Sinclair has made political donations of over $65,000 so far in 2004, 98% of it going to the GOP. Hyman is VP of Corporate Communications.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Trillion-Dollar Story

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 15, 2004; 3:03 PM

snip...
Thought the Swifties were fading away? Guess again:

"A newly surfaced document from John Kerry's Navy record says he shot a lone, wounded enemy who was running away in the incident that led to his Silver Star, his highest military decoration," says the New York Post.

"Members of the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth say the report vindicates their claim that Kerry didn't show the kind of valor that merits a Silver Star. The after-action report was obtained from the Navy archives by syndicated TV commentator Mark Hyman of 'The Point.' A Navy official confirmed its authenticity."

Kerry campaign officials said they would not respond to the story until they saw the documents.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22859-2004Sep15?language=printer
----------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.politicaljuice.com/2004/week18 /

And just like Fox News, Sinclair's News Central is getting some heat from some establishment media outlets for offering a more balanced and less liberal-leaning news report.

Sinclair relishes the criticism.

"Basically, in the red states," says Sinclair's Vice President for Corporate Affairs Mark Hyman in a NewsMax interview, referring to the markets SBG serves -- mostly in "red" states George Bush won in the 2000 election.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
HYman is also an embedded CIA spook (with a specialty in propaganda)

[G_j]

9. "Sinclair relishes the criticism."

exactly!

I've contacted them numerous times. I'm convinced that the more they piss us off, the more outrageous they get with the Hyman diatribes.
Complaints just seem to egg them on. :-(

[DesEtoiles]

8. string of e-mail addys for some Sinclair affiliate networks

[e-mail], [e-mail]

[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],

[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],

[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],

[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],

[e-mail], [e-mail],

[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],

[e-mail],

[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]

[KharmaTrain]

11. Lots Of Ways To Skin This Cat

Legally, Sinclair holds responsibilities to the community or it will lose it's licenses. From one's whose been there, someone prying around the company and station's ascertainment files can create a lot of headaches and problems for Sinclair.

I'd suggest looking up the boycotts Jesse Jackson did against CBS in the 90's to see how this was done to enact a change.

Also, looks like Sinclair needs this election revenue:



It's gonna take one hell of a 4th quarter for Mr. Smtih and his henchmen to break even on the year.

These assholes have created some great opportunites if we can organize and use this community's great intelects, creatives, experience and legwork to make these holders of public broadcast licenses beholden to the people it's obligated to serve.

If there's more interest, I'd like to get involved...I have more to offer.

Cheers!

[G_j]

12. I'm with ya

whatever we can do to fight these bastards, Im in.

[KharmaTrain]

13. I've Been Posting All Day

You're the first response I've had...thank-you. Seems things are moving too quick around here and the last thing I want is to get in the way.

Cheers!

[G_j]

16. there have been a lot of threads

moving through the forum. There is a lot of interest. Hopefully we can hatch out enough ideas to focus and organize something.

[Contrary1]

14. Their stockholders are getting restless...

Looks like a few will be dumping their shares come Monday.

http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&board=7083976&tid=sbgi&sid=7083976&action=m&mid=1204

[G_j]

15. I sure hope this is true

& Some added pressure on local stations and their advertisers would certainly help.

[G_j]

18. boycott sinclair broadcasting.com/

http://www.boycottsinclairbroadcasting.com/pages/1/index.htm


:bounce:

[G_j]

19. take action:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1033047

[GiantCranes]

20. An Idea, what do you think?

EDIT: this now has it's own post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1033476

[G_j]

21. excellent idea

the 'parents' list is too unwieldy and not specific enough.
People could list advertisers for their local stations, which would be much more effective.

[BurtWorm]

22. Know thine enemy.

:kick:

[RedEarth]

23. Great work

[G_j]

24. kick