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News :: Protest Activity
Photos from WICD Demonstration Current rating: 0
23 Oct 2004
WICD's tower. It reminded me a little of Mordor in the "Lord of the Rings" movies.

Here are some photos from the demonstration against Sinclair's breech of its responsibility to the trust it has been granted of the public airwaves at WICD in Champaign, Illinois on Saturday, October 22.
sinclair1.jpg
Activists gather on the corner of Springfield and Country Fair.
sinclair2.jpg
Demonstrator's protest WICD's airing of anti-Kerry movie.
sinclair3.jpg
Broadcasting ethics and wienerschnitzel
sinclair4.jpg
WICD's tower. It reminded me a little of Mordor in the "Lord of the Rings" movies.
sinclair5.jpg
Organizers strategize about delivering the petition to Channel 15 after finding the building locked.
sinclair6.jpg
Channel 15 extends a welcome. Or not.
Here are some photos from the WICD demonstration on Saturday, October 22. As usual, if there are any errors or you want one of the large photo files, email me at badadvice (at) gmail.com
Related stories on this site:
Sinclair and Mark Hyman: Orwellian Twist on the Campaign
Sinclair Backtracks, But Not Completely
Picket WICD planned for Saturday October 23
Sinclair: Stolen Values
IDF Presents "Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry" a documentary by George Butler to counter WICD bias

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Re: Photos from WICD Demonstration
Current rating: 0
24 Oct 2004
The only problem is, it isn't "propaganda" if it is the truth. I cannot understand what it is that liberal Democrats have against the American public knowing the truth. The truth sets people free to make wise decisions.

And if you say it's because what the POW's say may not be truth but propaganda instead, then where were your protests when F911 was sweeping the nation with its known untruths and 2 hours of propaganda?

More and more, it seems that UCIMC is becomming little more than a mouthpiece for liberal Democrats and their agenda...
Re: Photos from WICD Demonstration
Current rating: 0
24 Oct 2004
nra4:

you are welcome and ecouraged to post stories and pictures on the newswire from any anti-F911 protest you've want.

UCIMC is a community "mouthpiece". Wayward is reporting on a community event. You should too, if you are unhappy with the content.
Re: Photos from WICD Demonstration
Current rating: 0
24 Oct 2004
To be honest, I uploaded the article with no summary. The body identified the photos as being from the WICD demonstration. The summary was added when it was moved to the features section. Maybe it was a required field for features but not for newswire stuff?
Summaries Needed For Features
Current rating: 0
24 Oct 2004
While it isn't absolutely required, a Feature without a summary lacks context and is unappealing. Thus, we generally add a short tag line that is consonant with the story line of the article when making an article into a feature to make it more visually appealing if the summary is missing from the original article.

I would be happy to edit it if the author requested it.

As to the "truth" of the Sinclair documentary, NRA4 wrote in an earlier comment that he'd "choose to believe brave Americans who survived something so horrid and terrible, that they would rather die than to lie about it."

Well, whatever you can say about Kerry, the Purple Hearts, etc, he did in fact survive something horrid and terrible. So did his shipmates. I am aware that others have disputed Kerry's version of events, which is what Sinclair was promoting on the airwaves it has a public trust to meet, but Kerry and the people who have supported his version are also people who survived something horrid and terrible.

Thus, I think that by NRA4's own standards, both sides have this standing. Unless NRA4 is trying to claim Kerry and his shipmates weren't there at all. I've already heard the dispute about Xmas in Cambodia or whatever it was, but there is no doubt that Kerry and his shipmates did serve in Vietnam, under fire. So I think we need to use a higher or different standard to choose who we are going to believe on this one than NRA4's ambiguous one.

Really though, Sinclair's abuse of its public trust is a separate issue from who's telling the truth about Vietnam anyway.
Re: Photos from WICD Demonstration
Current rating: 0
24 Oct 2004
M.L.

I wonder where you guys were when CBS was publishing forged documents in an effort to nail the President???

I guess it's okay to commit any lie against our sitting President if it will get you to your ultimate goal, right? Micheal Moore.

Jack
Re: Photos from WICD Demonstration
Current rating: 0
25 Oct 2004
Ok ML, I'll concede that you are correct and they are seperate issues. I also believe that if the tables were turned, and there were a couple hundred vets that had served with George Bush who had stories to tell, and because of things he had done considered him to be unfit to be President, that the mainstream media would consider what those men had to say as not only "news", but gospel. We would therefore be subject to nightly interviews with them on every channel and all the talk shows so they could tell their stories. It'd be NEWS baby! I know it, and you know it, even if you won't admit it.

I would like to know how it is that someone can consider the CBS documents, forged ones at that apparently, to be "news"...so worthy that Rather needed to forge ahead(ooops) even when his own people were wary of them, but what Americans who lived something terrible that is indeed relevant, they MUST be silenced at all cost.
Re: Photos from WICD Demonstration
Current rating: 0
25 Oct 2004
What do you think the ACLU would be doing if this was Bush in a church yesterday instead of Kerry???


http://news.yahoo.com/p/v?u=/ap_av/20041024/av_ap_us/52b9f209bbcb8ec10a24a6caf9a3fd71&cid=448&f=53746353
Re: Photos from WICD Demonstration
Current rating: 0
25 Oct 2004
You're off-base, as usual. Nobody was calling for the Swift Boat Bozos behind the Sinclair attack ad to be silenced, only to be recognized for what they were -- creators of a partisan attack ad mislabeled as "news" solely to deprive the other side of a chance to an equal-time reply.

@%<
Sinclair Airs Anti-Kerry Material
Current rating: 0
25 Oct 2004
Sinclair Airs Anti-Kerry Material

BALTIMORE, Oct 23, 2004 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Sinclair Broadcast's program featuring material from a documentary critical of John Kerry aired Friday night, devoting as much coverage to the controversy as the film that sparked the uproar.

The program contained a few minutes from the documentary, "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," as well as excerpts from a pro-Kerry documentary, interviews with veterans who support and oppose Kerry, and a segment on the impact of new media such as the Internet on politics.

A history of the controversy that erupted following reports of the upcoming program was also given, including assessments such as "before anything had been decided, spin alley had become a superhighway."

On Tuesday, the company - whose executives are Republican contributors - announced the program would appear on 40 stations and would feature parts, but not all, of "Stolen Honor," which consists of interviews with U.S. prisoners of war who survived imprisonment in Hanoi and remain enraged at Kerry for joining the anti-war movement after he completed his Vietnam service.

The announcement came after critics and shareholders protested following reports that the program would air on all 62 of Sinclair's stations.

Kerry did not appear in the program, but comments he made on the issue on the campaign trail were presented. The Kerry campaign issued a statement afterward saying Sinclair executives have given more than $100,000 to George W. Bush and the Republican Party.

"Tonight they supported him with millions of dollars of air time devoted to an anti-Kerry smear aimed at influencing the election," a Kerry spokesman said.

"Sinclair's shameful actions can't obscure the plain truth - John Kerry was a war hero who was decorated for bravery," the statement said.

At the end of the program, a statement was scrolled on the screen asking viewers to let the Federal Communications Commission know if they agree with Sinclair's decision to broadcast the show.

The advance attention did not attract advertisers.

On Baltimore's WBFF, the program had only two sponsors, a local furniture store and a group dedicated to "personal responsibility and protecting consumer choice."

In Richmond, Va., a car dealer and the same group were the only advertisers, with the rest of the spots filled by promos for network shows and news programs.

Protests continued up to air time.

In Washington, about 60 protesters gathered in front of the White House. They carried a mock check for $9.9 million, the estimated value of the airtime being used for the program, said Andrea Lehman, a spokeswoman for the group.

In Charleston, W.Va., about 100 people gathered in the parking lot of Sinclair-affiliate WCHS-TV, carrying banners bearing the names of soldiers killed in Iraq, Kerry campaign material and an inflatable 13-foot rat with a "Sinclair Broadcast" sign tied around its neck.

@%<
Viewers Get Only a Peek of a Movie Chiding Kerry
Current rating: 0
25 Oct 2004
October 23, 2004

Viewers Get Only a Peek of a Movie Chiding Kerry

By BILL CARTER and SCOTT SHANE

After stirring up protest over its plans to broadcast a documentary critical of Senator John Kerry, the Sinclair Broadcast Group presented a program last night that gave short shrift to that film and offered instead a measured analysis of the debate over Mr. Kerry's Vietnam War record.

The hourlong special program, produced by the news department at Sinclair, a major financial supporter of Republican candidates and which regularly features conservative commentary on its newscasts, included as many backers of Mr. Kerry as critics.

Sinclair's producers seemed to go out of their way to create a balanced political collage in the special, called "A P.O.W. Story: Politics, Pressure and the Media."

Only about four minutes of Carlton Sherwood's anti-Kerry film, "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," were included - and virtually the same amount of time was devoted to an excerpt from "Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry," a film by George Butler that presents Mr. Kerry as a war hero.

The program was apparently balanced enough to satisfy a consortium of media watchdog groups, which held a telephone news conference last night to say Sinclair had acted responsibly. It also enraged a number of conservative viewers who tuned in expecting to see a hour of attacks on Mr. Kerry.

The prevailing theme of conservative viewers, as expressed on Internet Weblogs and chat rooms last night, was that Sinclair, the nation's largest local television station owner, had backed down as it saw its stock price plummet and came under intense heat from shareholder groups and advertisers for putting the company's political views ahead of its business interests.

"Sinclair has caved to pressure," wrote a poster listed as Kaferhaus on the Free Republic site, one of the largest conservative discussion forums on the Internet. "Very obviously they're running scared."

On another conservative site, Little Green Footballs, a poster identified as "mas" wrote: "Sinclair wimped out. This is more pro-Kerry than anti." The poster added, "I gave up 'Joan of Arcadia' for this?"

Sinclair executives had originally fiercely defended the right to broadcast the film, which accuses Mr. Kerry of making false statements about soldiers' atrocities and contends that those statements prolonged the captivity of American prisoners of war in Vietnam. In more recent days the company said the film was never intended to be shown in its entirety. The company did not comment last night.

The Kerry campaign was not mollified. In a statement, Chad Clanton, a Kerry spokesman, said: "Sinclair executives have given more than $100,000 to George W. Bush and the Republican Party. Tonight they supported him with millions of dollars of air time devoted to an anti-Kerry smear aimed at influencing the election."

Mr. Clanton said Sinclair had given no more than "lip service to the first amendment," in the broadcast, which was seen on 40 local television stations, many in swing states.

The Kerry campaign had earlier demanded equal time for Kerry supporters to respond to the film. But one Kerry representative said last night that the demand might now be superfluous, given how little of the film was used and how many pro-Kerry voices were included.

Beyond the brief use of clips from the two films, the program included two other segments, about four minutes each, devoted to the debate surrounding the Vietnam-era military service of both presidential candidates. It summarized questions about Mr. Kerry's Vietnam service, medals and subsequent Congressional testimony denouncing the war, as well as questions about whether President Bush got family help to join the Texas National Guard during the Vietnam War and then failed to complete his service obligation after going to Alabama to work on a political campaign.

Serving as host of the show was Jeff Barnd, an anchor with Sinclair's flagship station in Baltimore, WBFF. Mr. Barnd said Sinclair had sought an interview with Mr. Kerry repeatedly and finally approached him on the campaign trail. The senator was shown deflecting a reporter's question about the Vietnam years and criticizing Mr. Bush's record.

The most contentious part of the broadcast was the insistence by Mr. Barnd and other Sinclair officials, shown in brief clips, that the national news media had distorted the company's intentions and that the Kerry campaign, the Democratic National Committee and some members of Congress had tried to interfere with the company's First Amendment rights.

@%<
Re: Photos from WICD Demonstration
Current rating: 0
25 Oct 2004
gehrig,

You must be watching different news than I am. Last I heard, Sinclair was begging Kerry to come on the program and state his side against the accusations the POWS were making.

I didn't know we were also talking about Swift boat vets too. Yea, I guess that people who WERE THERE wouldn't know what they were talking about either...

But just think if the tables were turned, and people were coming out of the woodwork who served with Bush to prove he was a liar...it'd be NEWS baby! Those people would be all over the TV, and it'd be "news"...you know it, and I know it.