MEDIA MATTERS

FCC won't block anti-Kerry film

Chair Michael Powell: 'I think it would be unconstitutional if we attempted to do so'

Published: 10/14/2004 at 5:00 PM

Text smaller

Text bigger

Michael Powell, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said today the agency will not block the planned television broadcast of the anti-Kerry documentary “Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal.”

“Don’t look to us to block the airing of a program,” Michael Powell told reporters. “I don’t know of any precedent in which the commission could do that.”

As WorldNetDaily reported, the Sinclair Broadcast Group plans to interrupt regular programming to air “Stolen Honor” on its 62 television stations, which cover about 24 percent of U.S. households.

In response to the plan, 18 Democratic senators wrote to Powell this week and asked him to investigate Sinclair’s plan to broadcast the film, which features the testimony of Americans who served as POWs in Vietnam who were negatively affected by Kerry’s 1971 war-crimes accusations against U.S. soldiers.

According to the Associated Press, Powell said there are no federal rules that would allow the agency to prevent the program. “I think that would be an absolute disservice to the First Amendment and I think it would be unconstitutional if we attempted to do so,” he said.

In the letter to Powell, AP reported, the senators – led by Dianne Feinstein of California – asked the FCC to determine whether the airing of the anti-Kerry program is a “proper use of public airwaves.”

As WorldNetDaily reported, the producers of a pro-Kerry documentary about the candidate’s time in Vietnam has challenged Sinclair to air their film, “Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry,” alongside “Stolen Honor.”