Inside Sinclair: On Monday night as I was writing an article on Sinclair Broadcast Group, the company's Washington bureau chief, Jon Leiberman, called to grant me an interview. His news: he'd been fired just two hours earlier for telling the Baltimore Sun that Sinclair's airing of the infamous anti-Kerry documentary Stolen Honor amounted to "biased political propaganda, with clear intentions to sway this election." My story--much different from the one I set out to write--works his first-hand experiences at Sinclair into a broader look at this rightwing media empire. An excerpt:

"I got fired because I spoke out," he said in an interview with AlterNet. For months he’d been complaining to his news director, managing editor, and even CEO David Smith about Sinclair’s news slant, which he says tilts 10-to-1 against Democrats. But when his complaints were ignored, he went public.

"Nobody will speak out at Sinclair. It’s a culture of fear. But I know in my heart what they’re doing is wrong. It’s not fair and balanced … It’s pure propaganda, and they’re trying to shoehorn what should be a format for editorials or commentary into news," Leiberman says.

Read "The Eternal Twilight of the Sinclair Mind."