Hey, PD, crank up the 52 inch screen; Consumer pressure leans on Sinclair Media

 

If there's one thing you can count on in Laredo , it's that KGNS' Steve Lyerly will call Wednesday “hump day.” Very early in the morning his on-air boyish exuberance is best tolerated with a cup of stout coffee. You just want to say to him, “Shhh, son. The grown-ups are still asleep.”

On another note at KGNS, reporter and sometime anchor Jennie Suniga grows on you. She's a natural for reportage out in the field, much more at ease on the scene of a news story than at the anchor desk. The pearl choker, not necessary.

Matthew Le Blanc, “our own” Matthew Le Blanc, not yours, but theirs -- and we like him mucho for staying in our community, relaxing, and becoming better at what he does -- reported in a recent story that pro-lifers at a rally locked arms and prayed “the rosemary.” No, they didn't.

And Christina Medina, thinking faster than she could read, said that residents near a local park had complained that it “wasn't well maintenanced.”

When is Laredo PD's communications department going to install that expensive 52-inch TV screen that allows the 911 folks to know whether an officer is in his area or not? We heard it's being used as a tabletop. Get the TV set up, run to Wal-Mart for TV trays.

There's a nice little eco-tourism/ranching heritage guide book just out from the South Texas Ecotour Marketing Alliance . It's in full color and offers a guide map to the Llanos Mesteños (the wild horse plains of South Texas ). Our friends Zaragoza Rodriguez III in Zapata and Charles Hellen in Hebbronville have worked with the Texas Department of Agriculture to bring this valuable book into existence.

In response to a controversy of its own making, a shareholder revolt, a plummet in its stock prices, advertisers bailing, and a fury of e-mail communications, Sinclair Media Group, which owns a 25 percent share of TV stations in America, has announced that it will not air the entire documentary “Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal,” which accuses Senator John Kerry of betraying fellow Vietnam veterans by testifying more than 30 years ago against the war and about atrocities he said were committed by U.S. forces.

Sinclair will instead air only parts of the film during a program examining the use of documentaries to influence elections. The company said media reports that the entire film was to be shown were “inaccurate.”

As a result of the furor over “Stolen Honor,” advertisers in Portland , Maine , Madison , Wis. , and Minneapolis -- including car dealers, furniture makers, supermarkets, and restaurants -- have pulled commercials from Sinclair stations.

Consumer and media watchdog groups such as Common Cause, the Alliance for Better Campaigns, Media Access Project, Media for Democracy, and the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ are compiling a database naming all Sinclair advertisers and will try to persuade others to withdraw their commercials. Among those on the list are chains like Applebee's, Best Buy, Chili's, Circuit City , Domino's Pizza, Lowe's, Papa John's, Subway, Taco Bell and Wal-Mart.

Burger King has pulled its spots.

Sinclair's Fox affiliate KABB and the WB's KRRT come to Laredo via cable.

Sinclair recently fired it's Washington bureau chief Jon Lieberman after he publicly criticized the company's plans to air the politically slanted documentary. In an interview with the Baltimore Sun , Leiberman, 29, called the planned Sinclair program “biased political propaganda, with clear intentions to sway the election.”

Sinclair stock has dropped to less than $7 a share, from a high of more than $15 a share in January.