Today the Baltimore Sun reports that the Washington bureau chief for Maryland-based Sinclair Broadcast Group’s news division has come out to denounce his employer for forcing all of its owned and operated stations to air an anti-Kerry program:
“It’s biased political propaganda, with clear intentions to sway this election,” said Jon Leiberman, Sinclair’s lead political reporter for more than a year. “For me, it’s not about right or left — it’s about what’s right or wrong in news coverage this close to an election.” …
Leiberman spoke out yesterday after a mandatory staff meeting attended by Sinclair’s corporate news division at company headquarters in Hunt Valley.
“I have nothing to gain here — and really, I have a lot to lose,” Leiberman said. “At the end of the day, though, all you really have is your credibility.”
It’s too bad that it’s rare event when a commerical news media journalist dares to speak up about journalistic ethics, especially directly to his employer and at the risk of losing his job. Leiberman should be commended, however I wonder how the guy has managed to hang with Sinclair as long as he has, since the company is infamous for cutting corners with its news operations. Of course, to some extent, I’m sure the guy is just glad to have a job as a journalist in the first place.
Given the relative silence of corporate-employed journalists about the compromises and restrictions they face at the hands of their masters, it should be apparent that things at Sinclair must be pretty damn bad in order to force Leiberman to speak out so clearly.
You can read the full article at the Baltimore Sun, but you’ll need yet another registration. If you want to forgo that, the kind folks at Free Press have archived it under the auspices of Fair Use.