Staples To Mark Hyman: Bugger Off

Mark Hyman is the idiot/douche VP of Sinclair Broadcasting, a conservative-run network which attempted to air -- and eventually did in many markets -- an anti-Kerry documentary only days before the election. Hyman also compared those who discounted accusations made against Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to "Holocaust deniers."

Now, thanks to Media Matters, Staples has agreed to stop airing commercials during Sinclair "news" broadcasts (a Sinclair "news" broadcast features about as much actual news as does one from Fox.)

In the latest political fallout for Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. of Hunt Valley, the office supply superstore Staples Inc. will pull its advertising during certain Sinclair programs in response to what it described as customer complaints about "one-sided" news coverage.

The retailer said that beginning Monday, it would stop advertising during local programming on the 62 stations that Sinclair owns or operates across the country. The local Sinclair ads account for a small part of Staples' media spending, a spokesman for the No. 1 office supply chain said.

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Sinclair's news operation became a national story just before last year's presidential election when it announced plans to air a documentary that criticized Sen. John Kerry's protest of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. Sinclair's Washington correspondent quit over his concern that the station was slanting coverage to favor Republican candidates.

In the spring, the company ordered stations not to air an installment of ABC-TV's Nightline that listed the names of U.S. troops killed in Iraq.Owen Davis, a Staples spokesman, said customers e-mailed the Framingham, Mass.-based retailer to complain about its sponsorship of certain Sinclair programming. He said he did not know how many e-mails were received.

"Staples did consider, among other factors, the concern of some of our customers in whether or not to run the advertising," Davis said. "Staples takes the concern of our customers seriously."