Category: media ownership & consolidation

Yesterday a coalition of media and activist organizations, including Moveon.org and Media Matters for America, launched a protest campaign against Sinclair Broadcasting. They’re pressuring Sinclair’s advertisers with letters complaining of the TV station owner’s partisan leanings evident in programs like vice president Mark Hyman’s nightly wacko conservative commentary, The Point. In response, Hyman told Broadcasting…

I’m glad that media watchers and reform organizations are keeping their eyes on Sinclair now that the heat from their anti-Kerry schenanigans has cooled down. Too often, after a big controversy dies down, so does interest in the issue behind it, even if the controversy is just part of a bigger problem — such as…

Kind of a brief surreal moment — I’m watching the Late Show with Letterman and Howard Stern is busting away on the FCC, Bush and the religious right. Letterman is decrying the fact that 3 companies own 60% of radio stations (hmmmm, what about Infinity/Viacom/CBS?). And then I read that former Viacom boss (and Stern…

For those who prefer to read than listen, or want to engage in more deep literary analysis, BuzzMachine has posted a transcript of the Howard Stern vs. Michael Powell battle. Here’s the passage where Stern tries to blame Powell for the fact that Viacom seems not to want to sue the FCC for Stern’s indecency…

My friend John Anderson of DIYmedia.net has enrolled in graduate school here at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois. His assistantship is to produce a weekly 5-minute media reform newscast called Media Minutes that is posted to the Free Press website and airs on Robert McChesney’s Media Matters program on public…

Jesse Walker sent me a clarification and response to my post on Friday about his Reason.com article, “First Amendment Hypocrites: The Democratic Party vs. the Sinclair Broadcast Group.” Jesse gave me permission to post it here, which I appreciate, since I’m always glad to have dialogue with mediageek readers and other bloggers and writers. This…

Over at Reason magazine, Jesse Walker files a column taking the DNC to task for purusing Sinclair over its forthcoming anti-Kerry program. Himself a libertarian who isn’t supporting Bush, Walker is critical of the DNC’s attempts to threaten Sinclair’s broadcast licenses. He writes: Sinclair’s show doesn’t qualify [as a a news story, commentary, or editorial],…

I’ve learned that some local Champaign-Urbana activists are planning to picket our local Sinclair station, WICD-TV 15. In addition to Sinclair’s plan to air the anti-Kerry program, the activists also cite the slanted news commentary The Point with Mark Hyman as a key complaint. As I mentioned before, I’ve been watching Sinclair and covering the…

The boys over at Sinclair don’t miss a beat in emulating their heroes in the Bush Administration — they’ve already shit-canned their Washington bureau chief (click here for the registration-free version of that article) over comments he made that were critical of Sinclair’s decision to force its stations to air an anti-Kerry program in prime…

Due to crazy ISP connection problems, I couldn’t post to the blog Monday and Tuesday, so I didn’t have a chance to comment on the whole Sinclair anti-Kerry documentary thing in a more timely manner. A reporter from the daily U of I newspaper called me today for a comment and his first question was,…