Who has bias?

Big Media Trying to Influence Elections - title of recent email from NOW.

PK's response: YES! Absolutely! CBS's foul-up with memogate. ABC explicitly telling their reporters that they don't have to hold Kerry as accountable as W. Finally, someone has noticed!

The email goes on:

Tell TV Stations to Stop Partisan Programming Coup!

Remember, broadcast television stations are required to serve the public interest. It serves only George W. Bush and big business when the public airwaves are used to tip a national election.

Didn't seem to bother them too much when Michael Moore wants to show Fahrenheit 9/11 on TV, now does it?

Sinclair Broadcast Group owns and/or manages 62 stations across the country--many in swing states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin--and reaches nearly a quarter of all television viewers in the United States.

David D. Smith, president and CEO of Sinclair, is a conservative business owner who has a history of using his media outlets to support the Bush administration. Most recently, Sinclair ordered its ABC stations not to air the Nightline special during which Ted Koppel read aloud the names of the U.S. troops killed in Iraq.

What was Koppel's point of such a stunt? There are better ways to honor the dead.

The creator of the upcoming program (currently titled "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal") has strong Republican ties, having worked with the presidential administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Two men who appeared in the Swift Boat Veterans ads also appear in this so-called documentary. In the hopes of appearing "fair and balanced," Sinclair has invited Sen. Kerry to participate in a televised post-discussion where he would, no doubt, be subject to highly partisan attacks.

But Michael Moore's ties with Democrats are peachy. Didn't Moore also invite W to participate in F 9/11? If so, wouldn't have that been highly partisan?

They are so-called documentaries if they lean to the right.. Oscar worthy if they lean to the left.

According to The Center for Responsive Politics, Sinclair executives donated 97 percent of their 2004 campaign donations to Republican candidates. Does that sound like the kind of company that should dictate what airs on local TV stations across the country?

When Miss O'Hara and I looked up names of people who donated money to campaigns, I typed in the only zip code I could think of in and around Hollywood: 90210. I came up with a fair number of celebrities, such as Ben Affleck, Danny DeVito, Bette Midler, Debra Messing, Ted Danson, Judith Krantz, David Crosby, Leonard Nimoy, David Geffen (who co-owns Dreamworks, NOW - so you know.. that's a major media outlet, producing big movies... we don't want any discrimination of ideas here!), George Clooney, Joe Francis (of Girls Gone Wild), Kathy Griffin, Tom Hanks, Hugh Hefner, Dennis Hoffman, Quincey Jones, Ben Stiller, Daniel Stern, P. Diddy, and Viggo Mortensen all gave money to Democratic candidates or the DNC.

Paris and Nikki Hilton's parents gave large sums of money to both national committees.

I don't know who TV execs are but just this quick sampling shows what we all knew: Hollywood is highly partisan. But since they are partisan to the left, it's ok. Don't be partisan to the right! That's discrimination.

Like the fact our tech guy can keep his Kerry sticker up in his office across the hall but I had to take the Bush/Cheney one down.