More on Sinclair, Nightline

As the world turns (literally), the Sinclair/Nightline story is making its way around the globe. At this writing, news.google.com shows 342 stories. Let’s take a look at a few:

— The Guardian leads with an error in graph one. Yes, Sinclair owns stations reaching 24% of the US population. But most of its stations are FOX, not ABC.

— Sam Roberts, the Frances L. Wolfson chair and broadcast journalism professor at the University of Miami School of Communication told the Miami Herald that this could “easily be interpreted as a pro-Bush policy move on [Nightline’s] part, because it honors the armed forces. That’s if you were going to read into it a political motive, which I don’t. I’m really astonished by this reaction.”

— ABC responds, explains the decision to expand the program to include all killed in the war, not just those killed in action.

— In New York, Newsday reports that Sinclair questions not just the content of the story but its timing and accuses Nightline’s Ted Koppel of trying to stir things up a year ago when he was embedded in Iraq.

— Frazier Moore‘s poorly cited AP story (see MSNBC analysis below) has now run in/on CTV (Canada), Tacoma News Tribune, Rapid City Journal, Ft Worth Star Telegram, Boston Globe and Raleigh News — dozens of other papers or TV stations have run this story online with his byline.

At least one paper had the sense to run it as the op-ed that it is.

So who is this guy?

He’s the author of a “news” opinion piece entitled Trust the Media? TV Networks Make It Hard which ran in the Miami Herald in January. Poking around google reveals he’s an entertainment/television reporter.

And, I’m embarrassed to day, he is a fellow alumnus of the University of Georgia College of Journalism and a native of Athens, GA.

Is all “entertainment” reporting opinion (criticism) rather than news? I should ask my favorite, Kay McFadden.