Carlton Sherwood's credentials suggest a journalist of considerable skill.

The shared 1980 Pulitzer Prize on his resume testifies to that.

Carlton Sherwood Related coverage Sinclair advertisers face boycott over Kerry film

But there's no law saying good reporters can't also be angry. And make no mistake: Sherwood, who worked for the old Philadelphia Bulletin, Gannett News Service and Washington Times, is angry at Sen. John F. Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president. Has been for more than three decades now, he says.

This summer Sherwood produced a short film that skewers Kerry for what Sherwood views as his "betrayal" of fellow Vietnam veterans, a brotherhood that counts Sherwood as a member.

Sherwood and his film now find themselves at the center of a growing media controversy. Sinclair Broadcasting Group Inc., the 62-station media chain that owns two outlets in Pittsburgh -- Fox affiliate WPGH-53 and WB affiliate WCWB -- wants to air the Sherwood film before Election Day.

Kerry's campaign and media watchdog groups are yowling about Sherwood's "journalistic amateurism," and 18 Democratic U.S. senators have complained to the Federal Communications Commission, but the FCC said yesterday it has no plans to intervene.

"Don't look to us to block the airing of a program," FCC Chairman Michael Powell told reporters. "I don't know of any precedent in which the commission could do that."

"I want his feet held to the fire," Sherwood, a former Marine veteran of Vietnam now living near Harrisburg, told The Associated Press of Kerry. "I want him to answer for his lies and for his smear on us 33 years ago."

In 1971, Kerry, then a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about "crimes committed on a day-to-day basis" in Vietnam that had been reported by veterans at the so-called Winter Soldier event in Detroit earlier that year.

It's that testimony that has made Sherwood and others so sore and has been made part of an anti-Kerry campaign this year.

The hullabaloo has raised questions that are bound to set off discussions in journalism ethics classes around the country: Is Sherwood's film, "Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal," a news documentary simply because the producer and broadcaster say it is? Or, in this context, is it a political ad that could bolster President Bush's chances for another term?

If it is an ad, would broadcasting the film violate the Federal Communications Commission's "equal time" election laws, which say TV outlets must offer equal advertising time to two candidates for the same office? (News shows, including documentaries, are exempt from those laws.)

And if the Sinclair group, whose stations reach one-fourth of American households, is prevented from airing the film, is that a violation of the First Amendment?

Meanwhile, the Sinclair group, whose owners are Bush donors and whose editorial staff is trying to discourage people from voting for Kerry, says this flap isn't about election laws -- it's about free speech. Sherwood's film is a news program, Sinclair contends, and the Kerry campaign will be invited to respond to the film after its airing.

Sinclair is the same group, by the way, that forbade its stations that are ABC affiliates from showing the April "Nightline" tribute to American soldiers killed in Iraq, saying the show was "political speech disguised as news content."

And what about Sherwood, the man in the middle? He says he's surprised by it all, but he's not averse to the notoriety that the flap has brought his film.

"I guess I've been out of the business for a few years," Sherwood said one day this week, sipping a beer as he was being interviewed in a Harrisburg bar. "In investigative reporting, you always get attacked. And you'd just go down in the bunker" and wait it out, he said. "These days, getting attacked is a good thing ... it's a gold mine."

He acknowledged some parallels between this controversy to the one surrounding the Michael Moore film, "Fahrenheit 9/11," which itself was criticized as a political hatchet job.

But the noisy "Fahrenheit" objections perhaps made the film more popular than it would have been otherwise. Objections to "Stolen Honor" could backfire in the same manner, making the TV airing a bigger event than it would have been on its own.

A self-proclaimed Navy brat who eventually settled in New Jersey, Sherwood attended high schools in New Jersey and Philadelphia, then enlisted in the Marines, becoming a sniper. When he was discharged after four years of service, part of it with the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines in Vietnam, he had earned a sergeant's ranking and three Purple Hearts for wounds to his head, neck and arms, he says.

In 1968, the year he left the Marines, Sherwood says he fell into journalism primarily because he didn't have any other prospects.

"I got hooked," Sherwood said. He got out of daily reporting in the late 1980s, partly because of heart problems, and partly, he says, because investigative reporting was becoming more of a legal exercise than a creative one. "I spent most of my time huddled with lawyers before stories ran, and defending myself in libel suits afterward," he said.

Throughout his reporting years and even afterward, Sherwood and controversy have been occasional partners. After writing a book called "Inquisition: The Persecution and Prosecution of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon," published in 1991, Sherwood was labeled as a shill for Moon and his Unification Church. The book said Moon, who was convicted and jailed on tax evasion charges and who founded the Washington Times, was unfairly targeted by prosecutors.

"Look, I only worked at that paper for 11 months," in 1986, said Sherwood, now 57. "I'm not a shill for anyone ... I never met the Rev. Moon. I wouldn't know him if he was in this bar."

Sherwood's investigative career took him from Philadelphia to the Gannett News Service, where he shared a Pulitzer for co-writing a series about an order of priests from Doylestown who fraudulently sold investment bonds to elderly victims.

As a result of that story and others, Sherwood was often targeted in libel lawsuits. "I've been sued 23 times," he said, practically boasting. "I went to trial six times. I never settled, and I've never lost a case."

After leaving journalism, he was eventually hired by then-Gov. Tom Ridge to run the Commonwealth Media Services bureau, which produces informational videos for the governor's office and other executive branch offices. He held that job from 1995 until Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell took office in 2003. Sherwood then took a job with WVC3 Group Inc., a Virginia security and anti-terrorism firm.

This summer, he took unpaid leave from that job, interviewed dozens of Vietnam veterans, and collected hours of footage. He and his production firm -- Red, White & Blue Productions -- edited the footage down to a 42-minute film about Kerry, his 1971 testimony, and the impact that testimony had on fellow Vietnam soldiers.

The film's production was entirely funded by a group of Pennsylvania veterans.

The film is not, Sherwood said, a political ad. He didn't produce it as a favor to Bush -- he met Bush only once, in 2001, at the Little League World Series in Williamsport -- and he was as surprised as anyone that Sinclair would force its affiliates to broadcast the film.

"There's nothing political about this," Sherwood said. "This is personal ... I would have made this film if Kerry was running against Hillary Clinton."

In fact, Sherwood said, he's not totally enamored with the Bush presidency, and might vote against Bush if the challenging candidate was someone other than Kerry.

Sherwood, who said he's a registered independent, believes Bush's post-war plan for Iraq has been poorly managed, and said that troops were overextended, "trying to hold the country together and do public works at the same time."

Of all the controversies in which Sherwood has played a part, this role seems most fitting. His anger toward Kerry has been brewing since Kerry's 1971 testimony in the Senate.

On that same day, Kerry also tossed either his combat medals or the attached ribbons over a fence in front of the U.S. Capitol, in protest of the war.

Kerry has said he threw only his ribbons, and also a few medals belonging to two veterans who couldn't attend the event. Sherwood, who said he was on assignment for the Bulletin and was standing about 15 feet from Kerry at the time, remembers the medals being tossed.

The sight stuck with him.

From then on, Kerry was the most visible face among the soldiers-turned-protesters, and from then on, Sherwood was convinced that Kerry's efforts to end the war had done more harm than good to his fellow soldiers.

"It's just something that just lays there," Sherwood said of the simmering animosity. "It's always been there ... he labeled us as psychopathic killers, and now he's wrapping himself in the flag."