A documentary to be aired shortly before Election Day by the Maryland-based Sinclair Broadcast Group has Democrats, including the campaign of presidential candidate John Kerry, up in arms.
Sinclair, which owns almost a quarter of all the television stations in the country, including six in North Carolina, has yet to set an air date for the film.
Democrats say the film, "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," presents a biased view of Kerry's anti-war activism.
The film includes Kerry's testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in April 1971 and interviews with Vietnam veterans and prisoners of war who say Kerry's actions caused problems with their North Vietnamese captors.
The film's Web site alleges that Kerry's remarks to the Senate about American atrocities in Vietnam fortified the Viet Cong's argument that American soldiers were war criminals and prolonged the POWs' stay in prison camps.
"This is an attempt by (President) Bush's wealthy friends to attack Kerry, and it should be considered an in-kind contribution to the Bush campaign," said Tony Welch, a spokesman for the Kerry campaign.
The Federal Election Commission prohibits media organizations from making large contributions of air time to any election campaign.
Sinclair has close ties to the Republican Party and to Bush: three members of the company's upper management contributing the maximum amount both to the Republican National Committee and the Bush campaign.
The company also faced heat from media organizations and members of both parties when it refused to let its ABC affiliates air an episode of "Nightline" in which Ted Koppel read the names of all U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq.
