The country's largest owner of television stations announced yesterday that it has ordered its eight ABC affiliates not to carry tonight's "Nightline" broadcast, in which the names of hundreds of U.S. servicemen and women killed in Iraq will be read as their photographs appear on-screen.
"The action appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq," the Baltimore County-based Sinclair Broadcast Group said in a statement announcing that it would yank the show.
WaPo article
"The action appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq," the Baltimore County-based Sinclair Broadcast Group said in a statement announcing that it would yank the show.
Yeah, right. ABC has really been out to undermine the U.S. efforts in Iraq.
Actually, maybe some of the media are finally noticing their conscience, as CBS finally aired the story of the prison tortures, after sitting on it for months.
[Barry Faber, Sinclair vice president and general counsel] told The TV Column yesterday that "our view was that the mainstream media focuses such a large percentage of their coverage of the U.S. efforts in Iraq on two things: one, the deaths of U.S. military members, and two, on Iraqis who are opposed to our presence in Iraq. We don't believe they're telling the whole story," he said, "so we sent people over there. We found, according to our reports, that the overwhelming majority are thrilled the U.S. is there after suffering years of oppression, and they are worried about what some radicals would do if we left."
Hello? Head up your ass, Mr. Faber? Majority of the Iraqis are thrilled with our presence there? I guess that's why things are going so swimmingly.
In an interview this week with the Associated Press, Koppel said he was concerned that tonight's "Nightline" broadcast not be seen as a political gesture.
"We had to be careful that it could not be seen as political on our part," he said. "I think it can be seen just as powerfully by people who are totally supportive of the war as those who aren't."
..."We believe ['Nightline' anchor Ted Koppel's] motivation is to focus attention solely on people who have died in the war in order to push public opinion toward the United States getting out of Iraq," Barry Faber, Sinclair vice president and general counsel, told The TV Column.
"If they wanted to do a program on, is the cost of this war in human life worth it, and discuss that issue and explain the benefit of what [the U.S.] is doing and what the cost has been and allow people to comment on it, that public debate we would welcome.
"But without any context and any discussion of why we're there and why these lives are being sacrificed, it will unduly influence people," Faber said.
"We had to be careful that it could not be seen as political on our part," he said. "I think it can be seen just as powerfully by people who are totally supportive of the war as those who aren't."
..."We believe ['Nightline' anchor Ted Koppel's] motivation is to focus attention solely on people who have died in the war in order to push public opinion toward the United States getting out of Iraq," Barry Faber, Sinclair vice president and general counsel, told The TV Column.
"If they wanted to do a program on, is the cost of this war in human life worth it, and discuss that issue and explain the benefit of what [the U.S.] is doing and what the cost has been and allow people to comment on it, that public debate we would welcome.
"But without any context and any discussion of why we're there and why these lives are being sacrificed, it will unduly influence people," Faber said.
One can only hope.
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