Media Matters for America Mobilizing Mutual and Pension Fundholders to Oppose Sinclair

Media Matters for America Successfully Mobilizing Mutual and Pension Fundholders to Oppose Sinclair Broadcast Decision

10/18/2004 6:34:00 PM

To: National Desk

Contact: Naomi Seligman, 202-756-4108 or nseligman [at] mediamatters.org; or or Melissa Salmanowitz, 202-756-4109 or msalmanowitz [at] mediamatters.org; Web: http://www.mediamatters.org.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Media Matters for America (MMFA) has built a formidable grassroots movement against Sinclair Broadcast Group's decision to air the anti-Kerry film, Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal, on Sinclair Broadcast Group stations across the nation.

MMFA publicized a list on its website, http://www.mediamatters.org of the top 20 mutual fund providers and six pension funds that own shares in Sinclair stock, inviting anyone who may hold stock in those funds to call their fund managers and request that they be divested from any Sinclair holdings.

Hundreds of MMFA activists have used the MMFA website to determine if their mutual fund companies have Sinclair holdings and are subsequently calling to ask that their funds are divested in Sinclair holdings.

Since news of Sinclair's decision to air Stolen Honor first appeared on Saturday, October 9th, the company's stock has fallen nearly 11 percent at a cost of $70 million in Sinclair's market capitalization.

According to the New York Times on Monday, Barry Lucas, senior vice president for research at Gabelli & Company, a major Sinclair shareholder, made his point clear. "I am apolitical on this, but I don't like to see media companies above the fold on Page 1... You are dealing in a business that people in public office have some influence over. In this case, we are talking about a regulated business by parties in Washington, and in my estimation it does not make a lot of sense to take a sharp stick and punch it in the eye of potential regulators. Those guys at Sinclair better watch out if Kerry is elected." According to the same Times article, Leland Westerfield, a media analyst for Harris Nesbitt Gerard, admonishes, "The recoil from Democrats at the F.C.C., and frankly moderate Republicans alike, suggests that Sinclair might be harming itself short term in revenues and long term in deregulation tactics."

This weekend, CNN and FOX News Channel covered the Sinclair controversy vis a vis shareholder actions.

"Because of Sinclair's partisan political decision to broadcast this anti-Kerry film days before the election, Media Matters for America has successfully mobilized activists to ask that their funds be divested of Sinclair holdings," David Brock, president of CEO and MMFA said today. "Sinclair's actions are an example of corporate hubris run amok. We urge Americans across the nation to contact their local Sinclair stations and urge them not to abuse the public airwaves by airing a political communications and falsely labeling it 'news.'"

The MMFA action is happening in concert with efforts by a host of organizations, websites, and bloggers to hold Sinclair responsible for its actions. For example, more than 107,000 have gone to a site, http://www.boycottsbg.com, to sign a petition against Sinclair's broadcast of the film. Sinclairwatch.org, (http://www.Sinclairwatch.org) another such site run by Free Press, has received 149,000 unique visitors who have generated 20,000 formal letters of opposition to Sinclair's plans to the Federal Communications Commission.

Companies are also beginning to pull their advertising. One local business in Madison, WI has pulled its ads from the Sinclair-owned WMSN/Channel 47, and in Portland, Maine, the Press Herald reported that Hannaford supermarkets, the Lee Auto Malls, and the law offices of Joe Bornstein withdrew their advertising indefinitely in response to the Sinclair plan.

In addition to encouraging participation by online activists, MMFA has, after viewing the film, refuted many of the claims made in Stolen Honor:

MMFA can confirm that at least two of the anti-Kerry activists featured in the film also appeared in Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads. (Paul Galanti and Ken Cordier, former member of the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign's National Veterans Steering Committee, appointee to a Bush administration advisory committee, and vice chair of Veterans for Bush-Cheney '00)

Stolen Honor falsely claims Kerry labeled all veterans war criminals. In fact, as MMFA and many others have repeatedly pointed out, in his 1971 Senate testimony, Kerry was simply relating the personal experiences of other Vietnam veterans who had come forward and told their stories; Kerry focused blame on the leaders at that time, not the soldiers, for the atrocities they claimed to have committed or witnessed.

Stolen Honor falsely claims Kerry had secret meeting with North Vietnamese in Paris. As MMFA and The Washington Post have noted, the meeting was not a secret. Kerry spoke about his meeting with Nguyen Thi Binh (then-foreign minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government and a top negotiator at the Paris Peace talks) in his 1971 public testimony before the Senate.

Stolen Honor attempts to link Kerry to actress and prominent anti-war activist Jane Fonda. As MMFA has documented, the frequently used right-wing tactic of seeking to link Kerry to Fonda has even involved the doctoring of a photograph to make it appear that Kerry stood alongside Fonda while speaking at an antiwar protest. In February, CNN noted that "Kerry aides said he did not support Fonda's trip to Vietnam," and that Fonda "said that she does not recall meeting Kerry during the antiwar movement."

On FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace, Washington Managing Editor Brit Hume gave credence to some of these false claims, declaring that the "most compelling parts" of Stolen Honor are the claims by the prisoners of war (POWs) featured in the film that "their treatment was worsened" and "their captivity was prolonged" because John Kerry's 1971 testimony before the Senate foreign relations committee was used against them.

MMFA research shows, however, that these remarks by two of the film's featured POWs don't match up with the facts. As Washington Dispatch managing editor Shane Cory noted in an October 15 editorial, Stolen Honor interviewee and former POW Jim Warner wrote in a July 2004 editorial for the military magazine Soldier of Fortune that "the last torture that we knew of had taken place in September of 1969." That was two years before Kerry's 1971 testimony. Also, in the same editorial, Warner recounted an instance in which Kerry's name was used for interrogation purposes against him, but then noted that the interrogation occurred " without torture."

For additional research on each of the claims above, visit http://www.mediamatters.org.

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Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Media Matters for America is the first organization to systematically monitor the media for conservative misinformation - every day, in real time - in 2004 and beyond. For more information, log on to http://www.mediamatters.org.