This week Western New York narrowly avoided being exposed to Ministry of Truth-style programming on Channel 29, Buffalo's FOX affiliate. Sinclair Broadcasting Group, which owns that Buffalo channel and stations in 23 other states, had originally planned to require all of their stations to pre-empt regular programming to air the documentary "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal."
The film, which is extremely critical of John Kerry's anti-war testimony before Congress, was essentially an in-kind donation to the Bush-Cheney campaign. Neither the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the airwaves, nor the Federal Election Commission could or would stop this absurdity. It was only after a stock drop and threats of stockholder lawsuits that Sinclair revamped the plan. A rare example of internal capitalistic controls and corporate responsibility; I am almost flabbergasted.
Friday night at 8 p.m. Buffalo residents will now see portions of the documentary as presented in news program entitled "A POW Story: Politics, Pressure and the Media."
Sinclair's actions are part of the larger and looming problem of corporate media ownership. Nine conglomerates currently dominate American media, creating in effect a propaganda system promoting corporate rather than public interests.
Corporations are allowed to run amok on broadcast and radio airwaves, which are publicly owned commodities. The FCC controls what entities, other than the government, can use airwaves and how they use them. Created in 1934, this government agency was successful at this task until rules altered in 1996 began to allow the corporate ownership we are seeing today.
Further changes to FCC control were approved on June 30, 2003. In an unprecedented move these rules, which significantly liberalized what was left of FCC regulations, were not subject to the regular public comment period. Private for-profit entities are now allowed to own up to 45 percent of media in one demographic market. Restrictions on the ownership of a newspaper and a television station in the same area were thrown out. And in perhaps the most concerning move, the ability of the FCC to review airwave-use licenses for public-interest standards was removed. We are now faced with the stark reality that the airwaves that we, the public own are no longer accountable to us.
The offending Sinclair Broadcasting Group owns 24 percent of stations in the United States: 62 stations in just 39 markets. Locally Sinclair owns stations in Buffalo, Grand Island, Rochester and two in Syracuse. In an effort to cut costs these stations often broadcast "local" news that was actually recorded at a central corporate location, even the weather forecast. Rochester station WUHF witnessed the firing of the entire news, sports and weather teams to implement this policy, according to Free Press.
This is not the first time Sinclair has pulled such a blatantly political move. Sinclair executives in the 2004 election cycle contributed 97 percent of their donations to Republican candidates and their programming has reflected this partisanship. Sinclair also refused to air the news program Nightline appearing on April 30, 2004, which read the names of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. In the ultimate irony Sinclair said at the time "we do not believe such political statements should be disguised as news content."
News stations that provide pre-recorded news produced at a central location and present thinly veiled propaganda as newsworthy are not in the interest of the public. They should not be allowed the use of public airwaves. The FCC is clearly no longer interested or able to control the public airwaves, and must be disbanded or drastically reworked to improve American media.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
