WE LIVE IN A POLITICAL WORLD. Two good pieces at Mediachannel.org on the controversy over ABC's Nightline, on which Ted Koppel will read the names of American soldiers killed in Iraq tonight.

Danny Schechter, noting Koppel's credentials as an establishment conservative, writes, "It is likely to embolden more critical journalism in the unbrave patriotically correct world of US media."

Meanwhile, Timothy Karr reports that the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which is protesting Koppel's alleged politicization of the war in Iraq by refusing to run Nightline on its eight ABC affiliates, makes 98 percent of its political contributions to Republicans.

Politics is in the eye of the beholder.

MEDIA LOG ON CNN. I'll be on CNN's Reliable Sources this Sunday (11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.) talking about media coverage of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. I'm told I'll be on with Boston Globe reporter Michael Kranish, lead author of the Globe Kerry bio, and National Review Online's Jonah Goldberg.