Scott Horton: CBS Says WHNT-TV Lying About "Technical Problem"...

[Junkdrawer]

....

Off the Air in Alabama

I am now hearing from readers all across Northern Alabama—from Decatur to Huntsville and considerably on down—that a mysterious “service interruption” blocked the broadcast of only the Siegelman segment of 60 Minutes this evening. The broadcaster is Channel 19 WHNT, which serves Northern Alabama and Southern Tennessee. This station was noteworthy for its hostility to Siegelman and support for his Republican adversary. The station ran a trailer stating “We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring ‘The Prosecution of Don Siegelman.’ It was a techincal problem with CBS out of New York.” I contacted CBS News in New York and was told that “there is no delicate way to put this: the WHNT claim is not true. There were no transmission difficulties. The problems were peculiar to Channel 19, which had the signal and had functioning transmitters.” I was told that the decision to blacken screens across Northern Alabama “could only have been an editorial call.”Channel 19 is owned by Oak Hill Capital Partners, who can be contacted through Rhonda Barnat, 212-371-5999 or [email protected]. Oak Hill Partners represents interests of the Bass family, which contribute heavily to the Republican Party. Viewers displeased about the channel’s decision to censor the broadcast should express their views directly to the station management or to the owners.

...

http://harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002487

FYI, Here's WHNT-TV's latest statement:

February 24, 2008

We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring a report titled, "The Prosecution of Don Siegelman."

NewsChannel 19 lost our program feed from CBS. Upon investigation, WHNT has learned that the CBS receiver that allows us to receive programming from CBS failed. WHNT engineers responded as quickly as possible to restore the feed at 6:12 p.m.

Our sincere apologies to our viewers across the Tennessee Valley.

To correct the problem, we will re-air the broadcast of that segment during NewsChannel 19 at 10 Sunday night.

You can also watch the interview on the CBS website.

http://www.whnt.com/Global/story.asp?S=7918345

I don't know when they put this message up, but I checked at 9:55 PM, and it wasn't up. So the 10:00 PM rebroadcast (if it happened) was for all intents and purposes, unannounced.

[muntrv]

1. I wonder if Katie Couric will actually report this on CBS Evening News.

This should be on Top 10 Conservative Idiots.

[Junkdrawer]

2. Right after she exposes all the lies in the 9/11 Commission's Report....

:rofl:

[mac2]

17. Or pigs learn the fly

[file83]

52. They already do...

[liberalhistorian]

48. Nah, her exclusive feature on the

hairstylists of Britney, Paris and Lindsey will take up too much time. Priorities, people, where are your priorities? :sarcasm:

[ConsAreLiars]

3. Maybe the 60 Minutes reporters will continue to follow up on this particular part of the story.

This "failure" is certainly deliberate and the close ties between the owners and the Rovian hit squad should prove rather interesting. A "Reality TV" mini-series -- tune in next week for the next installment.

(edit typo)

[suffragette]

4. There goes their excuse

And good point about the rebroadcast.
Even if they did it at 10pm, many people who would have seen it at the scheduled time would miss it, especially those people who aren't aware of this side of the story and who won't seek it out on 60 minutes website.

[LiberalFighter]

54. Rebroadcast at 10PM? Awfully late.

[BanzaiBonnie]

5. How about complaints to the FCC?

Anything at all? If it's an admitted decision by the owners of the station, that's one thing, if they claimed it was for anything other than an editorial decision, that (lying) should be investigated.

[aquart]

13. I was about to say.

They need to lose that license.

[jmowreader]

59. Only one thing would have piqued the Bush FCC's interest

If they would have only filled the missing 12 minutes with porn, the FCC might have been interested in investigating it.

But it's only about Republican malfeasance. Move along, nothing to see here.

[calmblueocean]

6. Forget about the station owners, complain to the FCC!

Over the air broadcasters have a requirement to operate in the public interest, not deprive the public of information and lie about it.

If this is true, they should have their license stripped and be heavily fined.

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/complaints.html

[dysfunctional press]

9. yeah...this administration's fcc is gonna look into it real hard, too...

:rofl:

[Ellipsis]

11. ...they should have their license stripped and be heavily fined.

I was curious about that. This seems to be a blatant example of NOT operating in the public interest of the people of Alabama.

[Warren DeMontague]

7. Must be one of them, ah, "coincidences".

:shrug:

[marmar]

8. WTF? Okay, where are we living? The old USSR, Maoist China, Third Reich Germany.....

.... or The USA under Bush? ..... OR maybe they're all different variations of the same thing. :scared:

[rumpel]

10. they should be taken off the air - permanently! n/t

[Wiley50]

12. I would be nice to know if they edited anything out

before they rebroadcast it, if they actually did rebroadcast it.

It's a Good Ole Boy Mafia down there. Not much better here 100 miles north

[merh]

14. The corruption is so much a part of the system

they will do anything to try to cover their asses.

And what is so sad, so outrageous is that Siegleman is not the only political prisoner of this administration, not the only person damaged because he was a member of the democratic party that had influence in the south.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/10/hbc-90001321

[mac2]

15. Demand they run it again.

FCC should remove their license since they promised the American people back in 2000 to not lie and control politics.

[Warpy]

16. The Bass family was also up to its armpits

in the Harken Oil scandal with Stupid. They're just as filthy dirty as his family is.

I have a friend in Louisiana who said it was blacked out there. It would be interesting to know who owns her CBS station.

[wtmusic]

18. I just watched the story. Would someone please splane to me

how, the fuck, Rove can refuse to testify a direct subpoena that has nothing to do with national security?

How is that possible?

[calmblueocean]

19. The counsel for the White House has invoked "executive privilege".

That's how. Meanwhile, our news media has more important stories to tell. Have you heard about Britney Spears?

Ugh. It's revolting.

[mac2]

21. Executive Priviledge was a term made up by Gonzales who

didn't seem to know anything about the Constitution and separation of powers. His duty was to enforce and protect the Constitution not make new laws to protect the criminal activities of the White House. Congress does over sight until they ratify the Constitution otherwise. The Congress should send over the police and bring them to the hearing.

[mac2]

40. Remember when we had Monica, Linda, OJ, etc.?

The media uses these smoke screens to hide what is really going on (debt, war, rights removed, legislation to open borders, etc.).

They also don't want to spend money investigating real news. Like everything else it is a profit for the few elite thing. Follow the money.

[mac2]

20. He's lawless and Congress allows it because they are also.

Theylack the will to enforce our laws.

[Tab]

45. He's not an idiot

He's an unethical fuck, but he's not an idiot.

Gee... look what happened! Britney is in and out of rehab!! Hillary is a lesbian/calculating/hardnosed b*tch!!! A family in (wherever) had (whatever) happen to them causing them to lose (whatever). No one watched the Oscars!!!

Oh, did we mentioned failure to pay attention to national affairs?

I am no fan of Rove (I liked Garrison Keillor's simile of how the administration's lies "shine like cat turds in the moonlight") but he is a shrewd dude and a solid study of the American psyche. He knows most Americans like to take the easy way out. We just brush that off. That's politics.

Hey, heard the latest about Britney?

[Tab]

46. He's not an idiot

He's an unethical fuck, but he's not an idiot.

Gee... look what happened! Britney is in and out of rehab!! Hillary is a lesbian/calculating/hardnosed b*tch!!! A family in (wherever) had (whatever) happen to them causing them to lose (whatever). No one watched the Oscars!!!

Oh, did we mentioned failure to pay attention to national affairs?

I am no fan of Rove (I liked Garrison Keillor's simile of how the administration's lies "shine like cat turds in the moonlight") but he is a shrewd dude and a solid study of the American psyche. He knows most Americans like to take the easy way out. We just brush that off. That's politics.

Hey, heard the latest about Britney?

[emalejim9]

22. Pulling hair out

The story pissed me off to the ninth degree and now this crap.

Republics, fuck off you fucking criminals.

[Junkdrawer]

23. Kick

:kick:

[Junkdrawer]

26. .

[Ganja Ninja]

24. Perhaps future license reviews under a Democratic ...

administration will not be kind to them.

[lonestarnot]

25. Nice to think about.

[KharmaTrain]

27. This Could Be Fun...

A couple of notes...

It is possible some tech hit the wrong switch...it was the weekend crew on the job here, and let's face it, working in Alabama isn't quite a major market. Equipment can fail...a bad transponder at the station or even a bad thunderstorm (just like a home-owners dish) can create problems on the local end the network can't detect. These are explanations, but I doubt this is what occured.

The best that happens here is the station is forced to re-air the segment in a prime time...and hopefully that is what is happening. Chances of going after the station's license are slim thanks to rules folks like John McCain and his girlfriend helped push...a license challenge is lengthy and expensive...the game is rigged so your bled dry before a challenge even gets to a court room.

[EFerrari]

28. I notice the station, in their apology, said the segment could be watched

at the CBS website but, they didn't provide a link.

[KharmaTrain]

33. Ya Know What They Say About The Cover-Up...

The more they attempt to white wash this thing, the more people will ask questions. Hopefully these antics along with the Huntsville paper's hit jobs are making people there wonder what is going on...and that may just be a good thing.

:hi:

[Junkdrawer]

29. As for rebroadcast..they claim to have rebroadcast the segment....

during their 10 PM local news:

FYI, Here's WHNT-TV's latest statement:

February 24, 2008

We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring a report titled, "The Prosecution of Don Siegelman."

NewsChannel 19 lost our program feed from CBS. Upon investigation, WHNT has learned that the CBS receiver that allows us to receive programming from CBS failed. WHNT engineers responded as quickly as possible to restore the feed at 6:12 p.m.

Our sincere apologies to our viewers across the Tennessee Valley.

To correct the problem, we will re-air the broadcast of that segment during NewsChannel 19 at 10 Sunday night.

You can also watch the interview on the CBS website.

http://www.whnt.com/Global/story.asp?S=7918345

I don't know when they put this message up, but I checked at 9:55 PM, and it wasn't up. So the 10:00 PM rebroadcast (if it happened) was for all intents and purposes, unannounced.

[bamademo]

49. I worked in the 90's for their ABC affiliate competition

They are a slimy station and there is more than one satellite feed. TV stations don't have a single point of failure.

[KharmaTrain]

57. Thanks For The Verification

I was pretty sure there was a "backhaul" as we used to call it...a way to switch to a landline or another transponder if the main feed went down.

Yes, there's no single point of failure in these operations...and the explanation from the station was lame. When will these fools learn that covering up the truth is worse than lying in the first place.

[ThomWV]

30. FCC Complaints? This was a Broadcast Channel wasn't it?

[EFerrari]

31. FCC will only step in in cases of indecency. So, unless there was

the wrong patch of skin shown, they won't touch it.

But, it wouldn't hurt to complain anyway. The station will hear about it. We complained about Fox when Bin Reilly suggested al Qaida bomb San Francisco and Fox didn't like it a bit.

[Lasher]

32. This story is being ignored by the MSM

[guitar man]

34. someone down there

needs to go in and ask to inspect the station's public file. It is a requirement that every broadcast station keep a file for public inspection. Any member of the general public may walk in during business hours and ask to view the public file.

I don't know if this particular station's traffic logs and discrepancy reports are part of their public file, but if they are, that's what you're looking for. It's legal documentation of what went "wrong" and why. If it has been falsified and it can be proven, the fines and penalties for such activity are pretty heavy.

[seafan]

35. LIARS. Every single one of them.

As of 9:40 pm EST, Sunday, February 24, 2008, this was the announcement on the WHNT web site, as captured on my printout of it:

We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring "The Prosecution of Don Siegelman."

It was a techincal (sic) problem with CBS out of New York. We are working with them right now to see if we can re-broadcast the segment.

Please be patient with us during this time. We are doing our best to correct the problem.

Later in the evening this was posted at the WHNT web site:

60 Minutes Programming Note

February 24, 2008

We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring a report titled, "The Prosecution of Don Siegelman."

NewsChannel 19 lost our program feed from CBS. Upon investigation, WHNT has learned that the CBS receiver that allows us to receive programming from CBS failed. WHNT engineers responded as quickly as possible to restore the feed at 6:12 p.m.

Our sincere apologies to our viewers across the Tennessee Valley.

To correct the problem, we will re-air the broadcast of that segment during NewsChannel 19 at 10 Sunday night.

You can also watch the interview on the CBS player on WHNT.com.

Certainly not much notice for their viewers... can anyone confirm that it was shown at 10pm?


And is it a silly question to ask how *WHNT's CBS Player* was able to show the program at WHNT's web site, when the regular WHNT TV broadcast had a *mysterious blackout*?


Thanks to Scott Horton, here is the complete video of the Siegelman segment at his link, along with analysis and the unsurprising revelation:

Off the Air in Alabama

I am now hearing from readers all across Northern Alabama—from Decatur to Huntsville and considerably on down—that a mysterious “service interruption” blocked the broadcast of only the Siegelman segment of 60 Minutes this evening. The broadcaster is Channel 19 WHNT, which serves Northern Alabama and Southern Tennessee. This station was noteworthy for its hostility to Siegelman and support for his Republican adversary. The station ran a trailer stating “We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring ‘The Prosecution of Don Siegelman.’ It was a techincal problem with CBS out of New York.” I contacted CBS News in New York and was told that “there is no delicate way to put this: the WHNT claim is not true. There were no transmission difficulties. The problems were peculiar to Channel 19, which had the signal and had functioning transmitters.” I was told that the decision to blacken screens across Northern Alabama “could only have been an editorial call.” Channel 19 is owned by Oak Hill Capital Partners, who can be contacted through Rhonda Barnat, 212-371-5999 or [email protected]. Oak Hill Partners represents interests of the Bass family, which contribute heavily to the Republican Party. Viewers displeased about the channel’s decision to censor the broadcast should express their views directly to the station management or to the owners.

LIARS. The whole lot of them.



So Governor Siegelman sits in prison on a conviction based on a star witness who lied, and prosecutors knew it going in to the courtroom.

This, in itself, is grounds for overturning Governor Siegelman's conviction, and clear reason to prosecute those who engineered and carried out this farce against him.

[mac2]

43. I called my Senator Obama

and demanded they have hearing about CBS once again silencing Democrats..influencing politics.

The White House is using our money to go after his political enemies in various parts of the country. Bush's friends help him. It's looking very much like Soviet Russia.

Protesters are silenced (they are in the streets but it is not on TV). hear so many complain about Americans don't care. When protests aren't on TV and Congress cares less we should use other means to influence them.

Some American citizens are put in jail for no reason, framed, etc. A liberal talk show host's son was put in jail for no reason. Siegleman, Trafactant, etc. Some are even murdered if they can't remove them from power (Wellstone, Gov. of Indiana and MI, Mink, etc.).

They should impeach Bush for abuse of power, murder, fraud, robbery, treason, etc.

[live love laugh]

36. What does it matter, Alabamans didn't see it did they...Mission Accomplished!

Sorry to be so negative, but, 8 years of Republican corruption will do that to you.

[notadmblnd]

37. just saw this posted over in GD

Oak Hill Capital controls Local TV, a holding company that owns WHNT-TV in Huntsville, Alabama!

Robert Bass, a classmate and ally of President George W. Bush is the main investor in Oak Hill Capital!

Yeah, "technical difficulties" MY ASS!

Those shits did it on purpose!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2920542

[Coexist]

38. knr - I will delete my dupe if I still can

[Coexist]

39. LaLa has a good article up - and mentions DUs help!

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/60_Minutes_broadcast_on_prosecution_of_0225.html

The White House has put pressure on CBS to kill the show, those close to the case say. Journalists covering the story have been attacked. The case's most prominent whistleblower, Dana Jill Simpson, recently testified to Congress, under oath, about Rove's involvement in politicizing the Bush Justice Department.

Her house mysteriously caught fire after she came forward.

WHNT in Huntsville Alabama was purchased by Oak Hill Capital Partners from the New York Times Company early last year. Oak Hill is owned by the Bass brothers, Bush fundraisers at the "Pioneer" level – raising over $100,000 for the Bush-Cheney campaigns in both 2000 and 2004. Lee Bass is perhaps the best known member of the Bass family for his role in George W. Bush’s failed energy venture called Spectrum 7 and later for his bailing out of Harken Energy.

The Oak Hill connection emerged last night on Democratic Underground.

[mac2]

41. Yet they won't impeach the criminal in the White House?

Why is that Democrats? No excuses. You might get support from Republicans because they aren't safe or free either.

[originalpckelly]

42. The motherfuckers!

:grr:

[Kaleko]

44. "They hate us for our freedoms!"

Yeah, that's obvious.

Sheesh, we're so fucked...

[jmowreader]

47. I'm certain that the receiver DID fail...

because that's what happens when someone accidentally sticks his fat finger out and flips the receiver's power switch to the "off" position.

It took the engineers twelve minutes to restore service because when you don't ever turn something off, the last thing you're going to think of is "did some Repuke asswipe turn the CBS receiver off during a story about the railroading of Don Siegelman?"

[guitar man]

50. except

there is at least one more receiver and possibly a tape backup too. There has been no explanation as to why an operator didn't immediately hot key the backup to air.....none.

[jmowreader]

58. The aforementioned fat finger was probably attached to the operator

There are freepers all around us, and if one just HAPPENED to have been working at the station the night Governor Siegelman's story was to air...maybe because the station's management knew he'd do it...

[happygoluckytoyou]

51. [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

SO MANY WEBSITES.... SO LITTLE TIME....

GOT TO SUBSCRIBE THIS ADDRESS TO ABOUT 100000 PLACES....

................................GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN

[Cherchez la Femme]

53. And on it continues

glib lies continuing and they don't even bat an eyelash :puke:

[rpannier]

55. Convenient

Down for 12 minutes, during the story on Seigelman.

If Bushco is ever indicted, I wonder if their feed will be down during that segment as well?

[candymarl]

56. Of course they are!

What else is news?

[CitizenRob]

60. so... how can you reair what you didn't receive due to a bad sat transmission?

So, just out of curiosity, how can you re air something that you didn't receive in the first place due to a bad satellite receiver?