Hyman continued pattern of accusing opponents of not supporting the troops

Written by Raphael Schweber-Koren

Published

On “The Point,” Sinclair Broadcast Group commentator Mark Hyman accused colleges and universities that sued to protect their right to ban military recruiters from operating on their campuses of “hat[ing] the troops.” The colleges have blocked recruiters in order to protest the military's ban on openly gay members.

It's a common tactic for Hyman. On several other occasions, he has accused his targets of hating the troops:

  • Hyman attacked the progressive group Working Assets, saying “they just don't care for our servicemen and women.” Working Assets has protested the decision of DISH Network, a satellite television provider, to offer the Department of Defense's Pentagon Channel, arguing that “the federal government is banned from producing propaganda aimed at influencing the American people” [“The Point,” 3/8/05].
  • Hyman accused some Democratic House members of being “just unpatriotic politicians who hate our military” because they voted against a resolution that praised the Bush administration's Iraq policy as well as the troops operating there [“The Point,” 4/5/04]. Ted Remington of SinclairAction.com noted Hyman's accusations in a March 17 column.
  • Hyman has repeatedly attacked Ted Koppel for broadcasting of the names of troops killed during the war in Iraq on ABC News' Nightline. In one case, Hyman said that the Koppel broadcast was a “trivialization of the deaths of our servicemen and women” [“The Point,” 3/24/05].

Remington has asserted that Hyman “equates support of the troops with support of the Bush administration and the Pentagon.”

In addition, Remington noted Hyman's August 12, 2004, smear of ABC News anchor Peter Jennings, accusing him of “appear[ing] to favor terrorists over America”:

Hyman's condemnation of Jennings was accompanied by video of an al-Jazeera sign sharing the same studio door with an ABC News logo at the Fleet Center, site of the convention. Al-Jazeera had its own skybox at the arena, but ABC News provided some technical assistance. For Hyman, that was enough to suggest Jennings supported terrorism.

Media Matters for America leads SinclairAction.com, a coalition of groups and individuals protesting Sinclair's continued misuse of public airwaves to broadcast one-sided, politically charged programming without a counterpoint.