Couldn't happen to a better bunch o' people...

(US Newswire) - Famed shareholder attorney William S. Lerach will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. today to discuss insider self-dealing by officers of Sinclair Broadcasting, the Baltimore-based television chain that is forcing its affiliates to show a propaganda film that attacks presidential candidate John Kerry. He will release a set of demands aimed at making Sinclair executives disgorge millions of dollars in unjustified profits taken out of the firm when stock prices were high during the past 12 months. Yesterday the company's stock fell a further 8 percent after being down more than 50 percent from the year's beginning, as advertisers pulled back to avoid the station's self-generated political controversy.

Yesterday, Sinclair fired their Washington Bureau chief after he denounced the planned program as "biased political propaganda" in an interview in the Baltimore Sun. But their stock price has been plummeting, advertisers and large investor funds are pulling out due to the controversy, and shareholders are angry. Worst, the deregulation Sinclair was hoping to win from a second Bush administration is now "radioactive", since any move toward it will be called the Sinclair Pay-back Bill.

Apparently, being an unpaid propaganda organ for an embattled administration is not a good business model. Who could have guessed?