Family business levers TV clout against Kerry

Few Americans have heard of David D. Smith, a low-key Baltimore businessman with a million-dollar salary. Or, for that matter, of his three ...

Few Americans have heard of David D. Smith, a low-key Baltimore businessman with a million-dollar salary. Or, for that matter, of his three brothers, Frederick, Robert and J. Duncan. But the four men, while shunning the media spotlight, have assembled the largest collection of television stations not owned by a broadcast network, a family-run operation that reflects their conservative views and has sided time and again with President Bush.

After 9/11, the Smiths’ company, Sinclair Broadcasting Group Inc., ordered its local anchors to read editorials backing the administration against Al Qaeda. Earlier this year, Sinclair sent a vice president, who has called John F. Kerry a liar, to Iraq to find good news stories that it said were being overlooked by the biased liberal press.

And the Smith brothers and their executives have made 97 pc of their political donations during the 2004 election cycle to Bush. Now Sinclair’s decision to order its 62 stations to carry a movie attacking Kerry’s Vietnam record is drawing political fire — not least from the Democratic National Committee, which plans to file a federal complaint on Tuesday accusing the company of election-law violations. ‘‘Sinclair’s owners aren’t interested in news, they’re interested in pro-Bush propaganda,’’ said DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe. How the Smith brothers turned a handful of stations they took over in 1986 into a national chain of network affiliates is a testament not only to their ingenuity but to relaxed federal restrictions that allow such firms to amass huge market power.

	Bush, Kerry in dead heat: Poll

	• Washington: President George W. Bush bounced back into a tie with Democratic challenger John Kerry a day before their final debate, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Tuesday. Bush gained three points on Kerry to move into a 45-45 percent dead heat in the latest three-day tracking poll of the campaign. The focus of the tight race now turns to Wednesday’s pivotal final debate in Tempe, Arizona. —Reuters

David Smith, 53, who once founded a firm that made transmitters for UHF stations, now controls stations from Buffalo to Sacramento, including 20 Fox affiliates, eight from ABC, four from NBC and three from CBS. In the four days since the Los Angeles Times disclosed that Sinclair has told its stations to pre-empt regular programming and air Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal, by former Washington Times reporter and Vietnam veteran Carlton Sherwood, industry executives have said they cannot think of such a precedent. —(LAT-WP)