On the October 12 edition of CBS's "Evening News," Dan Rather introduced a piece on Sinclair Broadcasting: "Also in the presidential campaign, there's a whole new twist tonight to negative campaigning on television. CBS' Jim Axelrod reports in this case the broadside is being delivered at the behest of a well-connected major broadcaster."
As if scripted by NBC's "Saturday Night Live," Axelrod then said: "If you ask the people at Sinclair Broadcasting, one of the nation's largest owners of television stations . . . showing this documentary critical of John Kerry's Vietnam record is simply a matter of free speech and good journalism . . . But when you own or operate 62 television stations reaching just about one-quarter of all U.S. households, and when you want to air what amounts to an extended attack ad inside two weeks of Election Day, maybe it's not so simple."
