News Content as Political Speech

As you may know, Sinclair Broadcasting yanked Friday's war casualty roll call edition of "Nightline" from its affiliates. Sinclair spokesman and commentator Mark Hyman said the broadcast attempted to "disguise political speech as news content" and argued "There is no journalistic value here."

You may have also heard that Sinclair's wingnut CEO, David D. Smith, was arrested in 1996 after a witness told police that she had seen "woman perform oral sex while Smith drove." This strikes us as more than just illegal or hypocritical . . . it's dangerous. But we're just filling you in. The Philly Daily News, who relates this story in today's paper, quotes a Sinclair statement that the incident "is unrelated to our business.” Adds the Daily News: "We thought you should know about this. There is no journalistic value here."

 Naming names [Philly.com]