Reply #86: Democracy NOW: Guest: Scott Horton = FCC Launches Probe of Alabama TV Station

[L. Coyote]

FCC Launches Probe of Alabama TV Station Accused of Censoring a 60 Minutes Expose
on the GOP’s Prosecution of Alabama’s Imprisoned Former Gov. Don Siegelman
March 06, 2008 - http://i4.democracynow.org/2008/3/6/fcc_launches_probe_of_alabama_tv

Last month, 60 Minutes exposed new details on how Karl Rove and the Bush administration may have unjustly targeted Siegelman for political reasons. However, viewers of CBS affiliate WHNT in northern Alabama saw nothing but a black screen during most of the segment. We speak to Scott Horton about the case and his new article in Harper’s, “Vote Machine: How the Republicans Hacked the Justice Department.”

Purchase DVD/CD
LISTEN
WATCH
Real Video Stream
Real Audio Stream
MP3 Download

Guest: Scott Horton, New York attorney specializing in international law and human rights. He is a legal affairs contributor to Harper’s magazine, where he writes the blog No Comment. He served as chair of the Committee on International Law at the New York City Bar Association. .....

AMY GOODMAN: What happened to WHNT?

SCOTT HORTON: Well, we have to go back a little bit here. We have a situation in Alabama that’s very much like what was experienced during the civil rights era. That is, network television and national media has focused on an issue, has come in and has seen that the coverage inside of Alabama is just inexplicably strange. It’s skewed. It doesn’t fairly present the facts. And much of it seems to be—to have a vendetta-like quality targeting Siegelman. It seems to be participating in the prosecution rather than reporting on it. So a lot of this national reporting is very, very critical of the local media.

So, against that background, when we had this mishap, as described by WHNT, a large part of the audience there simply refuses to accept that it was a mishap. And I think that starts with the explanation that WHNT immediately put out. They said that they were having technical difficulties with the network at the time. I got calls from people in northern Alabama when this happened. I had done work with CBS in connection—supported their research on this. And I called CBS News in New York and was told, no, there were no technical difficulties. The signal was out, it was fine, it was going all across the country. The station, WHNT, had the signal and had operating transmitters. They couldn’t understand what was wrong.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And has the station clarified since then what the technical difficulties were?

................