Es interesante conocer cómo ha decidido el Grupo Sinclair no emitir el documental en el que Kerry quedaba mal ante el electorado. Además de las habituales presiones políticas sobre la empresa, y las referidas al boicot publicitario, en este caso ha aparecido un tipo nuevo de presiones, capaces de silenciar a un medio informativo.
Nuevas presiones que tienen que ver con los accionistas de la empresa, y sobre todo, por parte de los admisitradores de fondos de diverso tipo que han invertido en la empresa periodística. En un breve artículo sin firma del WSJ de hoy, viernes 22, se puede leer con cierto detalle el caso concreto y los antecedentes que plantea de cara a futuras trabas para la libertad de información en ese país.
Sinclair Broadcast Group's decision this week not to air "Stolen Honor," a documentary on John Kerry's post-Vietnam antiwar activities, is being cheered by liberals as a victory for truth, honor and the Democratic Party. But we wonder if the liberals in the media might not eventually rue the day, much as the New York Times now rues the special prosecutor it helped to launch in the Joe Wilson-Valerie Plame case. Sinclair bent under enormous political pressure, but notably a kind we haven't seen wielded before to silence the media. We aren't referring to the raft of Democratic complaints filed with official agencies. There's nothing unusual there. A call for an advertising boycott came next -- again, not pleasant, but not unheard of in this business. But the real kicker came when New York State's Democratic Comptroller, Alan Hevesi, also decided to assail Sinclair. Mr. Hevesi wrote a letter to Sinclair in his capacity as trustee of the state pension fund, which owns 265,000 shares in the company. "Some critics suggest that Sinclair management is more interested in advancing its partisan political views than in protecting shareholder value," he writes. (...) Now that this trial lawyer-government precedent has been set, who's to stop it if it next turns, as eventually it will, on the New York Times, or CBS? One of the most important protections that a free press has is independent corporate ownership, but what if the Nixon Administration had unleashed its lawyer friends and government pension funds on the Times Company when it was publishing the Pentagon Papers, or the Washington Post when it was digging into Watergate? If the standard now is that stirring controversy is a fraud against shareholders because it may cost ad revenue, a lot more media owners than Sinclair are going to become political targets. |
Poll: Sinclair should show both sides, by Jon Friedman, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Sinclair Sued by Filmmaker Over Kerry Photos, by G. Appleson, Reuters.
Free Press: Thanks to you, Sinclair bowed to massive public pressure. After a deluge of phone calls, emails, boycotts and threatened lawsuits, Sinclair didn't run the anti-Kerry documentary the company claimed was "news." Instead, it ran another program that — while still arguably anti-Kerry — presented both sides of the story.
Sinclair Watch: Challenge Sinclair. Sinclair Broadcast Group is the largest TV station owner in the country. Their programming reaches at least 1/4 of all U.S. households. Now, they're abusing their privileged access to the public airwaves to sway the election in favor of an administration that lets companies like Sinclair to grow even bigger. Together, we can reclaim our airwaves and take our democracy back.
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