Sinclair Plans 'News Special'

Sinclair Broadcast Group is proceeding with its plans to air a special program discussing John Kerry's Vietnam-era activities.

The broadcaster said Tuesday that 40 of its 62 TV stations would broadcast a one-hour news program entitled, "A POW Story: Politics, Pressure and the Media."

The announcement comes 10 days after the Los Angeles Times reported that the station group and its right-leaning executives were planning to pre-empt regular programming in the waning days of the presidentialcampaign to run an anti-Kerry documentary entitled, "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal."

Critics of Sinclair protested that such a move was equivalent to bestowing free advertising time upon President Bush. Sinclair, meanwhile, denied that it ever planned to broadcast the documentary, issuing a statement that said, in part, "the program has not been videotaped and the exact format of this unscripted event has not been finalized." ...