On the January 5 edition of “The Point,” Sinclair Broadcast Group's two-minute conservative commentary that airs every night on the 62 television stations Sinclair owns or operates, host and Sinclair vice president Mark Hyman responded to the efforts of SinclairAction.com. Led by Media Matters for America, SinclairAction.com has organized a campaign to protest Sinclair's continued misuse of public airwaves to air one-sided, politically charged programming without a counterpoint.

From the January 5 edition of “The Point”:

HYMAN: I wasn't going to address this, and then I thought, “what the heck?” Several days before Christmas -- and please note, I said “Christmas” and not “the holiday season,” and that alone will anger the liberals -- a collection of obscure groups and individuals made a desperate plea for attention. They launched a campaign to pressure advertisers of this station because of this two-minute segment, The Point. Gasp! I've got opinion in my opinion segment. And not only that, but it presents only one point of view.

[...]

I think one would be hard pressed to find any other commentary or opinion program anywhere else on television -- broadcast or cable -- where the word “commentary” appears the entire time the host is on the screen. Katie Couric is on the air offering her opinion 15 hours each week. Dan Rather: 7 1/2 hours. Same goes for Peter Jennings. And Ted Koppel. And the story's the same for CNN's Aaron Brown, although he only has a handful of viewers.

For some reason these Crabby Appletons cannot get past the November 2nd election. So they've launched a letter writing campaign. My advice to them is this: if you want to make a difference, then why not write to our servicemen and women who are serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and who are deployed to other locations around the globe. Leave the soap makers and car dealers alone. They're just trying to make a buck, and they don't really need a bunch of busybodies spamming their email in-boxes.

Nonetheless, I support this group's right to be the gaggle of whiny malcontents that they are. I must admit that it is amusing that my 15 minutes on-air each week is so disturbing to them that they've launched an entire campaign to try to get me. But imagine how much good could be accomplished if they focused their efforts on something more constructive.

The election is over. It's time to move on. And that's The Point. I'm Mark Hyman.

Hyman consistently attacks progressives and prominent Democrats on “The Point,” and regularly uses his commentaries to voice support for President Bush and conservative policies. As Media Matters has also repeatedly noted (here, here, here, and here), Hyman's commentaries contain numerous misleading statements and factual inaccuracies.