LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A major television chain, the Sinclair Broadcast Group, will bar its ABC-affiliated stations from airing a planned "Nightline" tribute to fallen U.S. troops in Iraq, saying the program is a political statement disguised as news...Sinclair said the "Nightline" segment "appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq"...The network initially said the 30-minute telecast would be limited acknowledging only the 523 U.S. troops killed in combat since the start of the war in March 2003. But on Thursday, ABC said it would expand the program to 40 minutes to include another 200 or more Americans who died as a result of accidents, friendly fire or suicide. continue reading
smockmomma's letter to ABC News
ABC News' plans to devote tonight's entire "Nightline" segment to Ted Koppel reading the names of fallen American service persons as their photographs are shown is in extremely poor taste. This is yellow journalism at it's worst and most blatant. ABC has stooped to using death for (ratings) profit -- indeed an egregious violation of journalistic integrity.
ABC is a unit of the Walt Disney Co.
EMAIL NIGHTLINE.
Sinclair Broadcast Group
If it is being done as a ratings stunt, it will probably backfire. I can think of few things more boring that a voice droning a list of names over a slide show of head shots. I think most attention-challenged TV viewers would be hitting the remote.
I thought it was supposed to be done without commercial breaks...in that case, how can ratings help?