Score One for the Net

Sinclair television's plan to air a 42 minute anti-Kerry commercial disguised as a documentary has run up against the solid wall of the Internet.

Our activist brother discovered the power when he was able to post an alert on the Kerry.com website, having grabbed the company's address and phone numbers from its website, and a list of the TV stations it owned across America from a page posted by the Columbia Journalism Review. Two minutes of googling, five more of blogging, and a front was opened to attack Sinclair with protests, with calls to local stations, and especially calls to their advertisers.

The bigger and more powerful blogs like kos, atrios, marshall's talking points memo, mahablog and others were on the case within hours. Most detailed lists of stations and some with their advertisers appeared. People reading these sites and blogs who lived in the Sinclair cities started calling. Others got involved, including members of Congress and some activists with money.

Advertisers starting pulling out: the number is now up to at least 80. Local stations were weeping, because this is their revenue stream. Law suits started. Sharesholders started to protest. The news director of the Sinclair Washington station came out publicly against the order to show the anti-Kerry ad, and he was fired.

But all of this made Wall Street nervous. Sinclair stock began to tank. Sinclair losts an estimated $100 million in revenue.

Now Sinclair has announced it is not airing this "documentary," but its own news program examining the influence of documentaries, blah blah. No one exactly believes them, so the pressure is still on. But to avoid a lawsuit by Media Matters, they have stated flatly that they won't air it. Meanwhile, the folks who made the award-winning "Going Up River" docu on Kerry, mostly positive, have partnered with one of those money guys, and offered to buy time to show it on all Sinclair stations.

This has happened in the space of about ten days.

Score one for the Internet.