That’s got to the most fucking idiotic claim in the world, by the way, that we have a “liberal” media. If you’ve watched reporting during this presidency or during the “blame Clinton” years in the 90’s, it’s pretty clear that the media has little liberal anything… if anything, the media has leaned to the right over recent years in terms of their political reporting. Increased corporate ownership of our major media outlets is part of the reason that the media feels less willing to take risks or support populist or liberal issues.

The latest example of this is the Sinclair Broadcasting Group, the same people that refused to air the Nightline episode that named all the American casualties. Well, they’ve decided to air an anti-Kerry film called Stolen Honor about a week before the elections. They will preempt the network programming on each of their stations in order to air the film and then will host a panel discussion afterwards. As Josh Marshall puts it:

Basically it’s a 90 minute Swift-Boat ad which Sinclair is ordering stations seen in a quarter of the nation’s households to show a week before the election.

It actually is affiliated with the Swift Boat 527… I’ve been keeping CNN on more often at work lately and they’re putting up a URL for the film in their new commercials, both of which are distortions of Kerry’s testimony in front of Congress.

This ought to be illegal. I’m sure the Republicans who were complaining that advertising for Fahrenheit 9/11, a movie released in major theaters many months before the election, should be banned from airing will file the same complaint with the FEC and FCC about this, too.

In case you were wondering, Sinclair executives have given 97% of their money to Republicans this election cycle.

“It’s not the American way for powerful corporations to strong-arm local broadcasters to air lies promoting a political agenda,” said David Wade, a spokesman for the Democratic nominee’s campaign. “It’s beyond yellow journalism; it’s a smear bankrolled by Republican money, and I don’t think Americans will stand for it.”

Sinclair stations are spread throughout the country, in major markets that include Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Las Vegas; its only California station is in Sacramento. Fourteen of the 62 stations the company either owns or programs are in the key political swing states of Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where the presidential election is being closely fought.

Station and network sources said they have been told the Sinclair stations — which include affiliates of Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, as well as WB and UPN — will be preempting regular programming for one hour between Oct. 21 and Oct. 24, depending on the city. The airing of “Stolen Honor” will be followed by a panel discussion, which Kerry will be asked to join, thus potentially satisfying fairness regulations, the sources said.

Kerry campaign officials said they had been unaware of Sinclair’s plans to air the film, and said Kerry had not received an invitation to appear.

The only way this could be even remotely fair is if they preempt another hour or two and air Going Upriver or Fahrenheit 9/11.