Missing Siegelman broadcast stirs flap

[sabra]

Source: Alabama Times

<snip>

Did the local CBS affiliate intentionally pull the plug on the show because it put Siegelman in a favorable light and Republicans in a really, really bad one?

No, said WHNT general manager Stan Pylant. It was just awful timing for a piece of equipment to break down, he said.

"We had a technical failure at our transmitter site on Monte Sano which kept us from receiving the CBS signal," said Pylant. "We certainly don't have any reason to keep people from seeing the broadcast. We promoted the story all week on our newscast.

....

Among those are the leadership of the Alabama Democratic Party, which is asking the Federal Communications Commission to seek a formal inquiry into the situation.

"It has come to the attention of many Democrats in north Alabama and that the principal owners of WHNT are Bush Pioneers (people who have raised $100,000 or more for the President's election campaigns) and major Republican donors," wrote Alabama Democratic Party Executive Director Jim Spearman in a Monday press release.

"Many suspect that the enormous pressure was put on CBS to not air the Siegelman story. If CBS received political pressure to stifle the First Amendment rights of the network or affiliate, the FCC and Congress should take appropriate oversight into the matter."

Read more: http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/index.ssf?/base/news/1204020935283080.xml&coll=1

[Supersedeas]

1. the fithy Repigs need to get their lies straight

[UpInArms]

2. bushfascists own the media and I don't believe their denials

for anything.

Poppy is the one that coined the phrase "believable deniability".

[nxylas]

16. Guess they no longer see the need for the "believeable" part

When you can do what you like, with no oversight from anybody, why make the effort to create a story that would fool anyone with an IQ over 30?

[wtmusic]

3. Kinda backfired, didn't it.

Now everyone will have to see it. Better practice yer frogmarch, Karl!

[samplegirl]

4. Lee Bass owns that Alabama T.V. network

so go figure.

[Bozita]

5. Remember Harken Energy? ... Guess who owns the station.

"WHNT is owned by Oak Hill Capital Partners, a private equity firm whose lead investor is one of the Bass brothers of Texas. The brothers are former business partners of George W. Bush and generous contributors to Republican causes."

That's from today's NYT editorial: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/opinion/27wed4.html?ref=opinion

Here's some background on the Bass brothers:

http://www.jonesreport.com/article/12_07/271207_media_c ...

Bush associates still consolidating their hold on US media

Diane Sweet / Raw Story | December 27, 2007

Longtime associates of President George W. Bush are consolidating their hold on American media with a string of recent purchases, RAW STORY can report.

Conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. announced of late the sale of 8 of its US television stations to a private equity firm -- Oak Hill Partners -- for an estimated $1.1 billion dollars that is expected to close sometime in 2008.

The deal leaves Murdoch with another 27 television stations in major US cities such as Boston, New York City, and Los Angeles, as well as The New York Post, a controlling interest in BSkyB, movie studio 20th Century Fox, and Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co Inc.

Oak Hill Partners lead investor Robert M. Bass, a longtime associate of George W. Bush, is also the founder of Ft. Worth, Texas-based Bass Brothers Enterprises. Oak Hill issued a statement announcing the stations would be jointly managed by a broadcast holding company, Local TV, that was created by Oak Hill for the purpose of purchasing 9 other television stations from The New York Times previously this year.

more...

[Tempest]

6. If nothing else

This lets everyone know WHNT is in the pockets of the rightwing and more people will look on their broadcasts with skepticism.

[fascisthunter]

7. Liar.... Say Buh-Bye to Your Credibility with the Public (nt)

[Dr.Phool]

8. Petition the FCC to revoke their license.

[cstanleytech]

10. For what reason?

I know it smells to high heaven but its not been proven yet that it was done on purpose and until then the FCC will probably laugh at any such petitions, especially the current FCC while its still under the thumb of Bush and the republicans.

[EFerrari]

34. It doesn't matter if they laugh or not.

If complaints are filed, the station will be notified and they will know that people care enough to take that step.

[pattmarty]

9. BULLSHIT!!!!!!! This is blatant censorship, plain & simple.

[MelissaB]

11. More

...snip

"60 Minutes" reporter Scott Pelley also quoted Bailey as saying prosecutors met with him 70 times because they were frustrated with him not being able to properly recall the story of seeing the governor holding a hefty check from Scrushy after promising the HealthSouth executive a seat on the board he'd already served on for three other governors, all Republicans.


Siegelman attorney Vince Kilborn said Monday that any evidence that the key witness was told to practice writing out his testimony should have been turned over to defense attorneys before the trial started. Because the notes could have suggested that Bailey wasn't the most credible of witnesses, Kilborn said a special prosecutor should be appointed to the case.

[JDPriestly]

12. Perhaps the station should rebroadcast that show?

That would show they are in good faith and didn't pull the plug.

[sabra]

13. they have... late that same evening and later on in the week...

[ooglymoogly]

17. how late that same evening?

was it when every body was asleep. This is not Manhattan where peoples minds are still working late into the night. Folks in the country go to bed early so that could be not so good of an argument.

[dbonds]

27. They did the next day also.

During the 5:00pm news.

[mac56]

22. But not at the time people expected to see it.

Station manager said they were promoting that show AT THAT TIME.

Conveeeeeeeeenient....

[debbierlus]

14. Very simple answer then: RERUN IT

Not very complicated at all. RERUN THE STORY with apologies.

Simple

[Haole Girl]

15. K&R

[guitar man]

18. engineer's report (supposedly)

WHNT Report, Failure going into 60 Minutes on 2/24/08 at 6PM CT

At 7:03pm I received a call from Tracy Garrett at the DOC, Tracy said that we lost CBS when we went to 60 Minutes at 6:00pm. Tracy said he had talked to the station and they were trying to find out what was going on. I was about 10 blocks from the station at the time of the call and proceeded to the station as quickly as possible. When I arrived at the station I switched to CBS IRD 4 at the station placing CBS 60 Minutes back on air at 6:12:17. At that point I started investigating the problem. I called CBS control to see if they could determine what happened to cause the failure from our IRD’s at the transmitter site. CBS looked at the CBS rack and said that IRD one looked normal but there was a problem with IRD three, it appeared to be off channel with an alarm. At that point I sent Richard Hunter the assistant Chief engineer to the transmitter to determine what was going with the CBS signal from the receive site at the transmitter.

When Richard arrived he started trouble shooting the problem and determined that what CBS was saying was correct. When Richard looked at the output from IRD 1 there was no video and IRD three had an alarm because it was looking at the wrong channel. When Richard power cycled IRD one at 6:18:12Pm all IRD’s in the rack blinked and video returned from IRD one.”

Ok, so someone was at the station at 7:03 (eastern time I presume, 6:03 central)since Tracy at their DOC was talikng to them. The engineer shows up and at at 6:12:17 keys IRD4 (yes folks, that's 4, count 'em 4 satellite receivers) back to air. Am I supposed to believe that whoever this Tracy was talking to was not capable of pushing a button to switch a backup sat receiver to air? I think not...this stinks to high heaven.

[happygoluckytoyou]

19. CBS HAD A TESTICLE FAILURE..... need to rent some balls

[Cherchez la Femme]

20. NOT a "Technical problem"

Discussed here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2919156

[mac56]

21. The "wardrobe malfunction" spurred tons of governmental response.

This, however, is probably going to get swept under the carpet.

:wtf:

[BrklynLiberal]

23. Riiiiiiiiiiight. and I have a bridge near me I want to sell you.

[guitar man]

24. here's a blog from the "news" director

http://www.whnt.com/Global/story.asp?S=7928458

open for comments :evilgrin:

[JPZenger]

29. As of Wed afternoon, whole website is dead

As of Wed. afternoon, it appears that the whole website of the station is down, and/or overloaded.

[guitar man]

30. hmmm

it's still working here...

[EFerrari]

33. Seems to be down right now.

:shrug:

[guitar man]

35. yep

looks like they might have taken the site offline, they were getting pounded. :rofl:

[JPZenger]

25. Witness' House Burns, Her Car Forced Off the Road

Jill Simpson is the former GOP operative who testified before a US House Committee under oath about the vendetta against Siegelman. (Funny how Rove never testifies under oath). By coincidence, some unusual things happened to her:

Excerpts:

"While communicating with Siegelman’s attorney prior to releasing her affidavit, Simpson’s house was demolished by a mysterious fire, and Simpson herself was forced off the road. Mere coincidences, of course.

The judge at Siegelman’s trial, Mark Fuller, a Bush appointee and a former member of the executive committee of the Alabama Republican party, had a well-known grudge against Siegelman. Fuller refused to recuse himself from the case, denied bail, immediately put Siegelman in shackles and ordered him to the Atlanta federal prison. After seven months Judge Fuller, in violation of the law, has refused to release the trial transcript without which the defendant cannot appeal his conviction.

Don Siegelman has since been shuttled back and forth among several federal prisons out of touch with his attorneys and not allowed access to the Internet or to press interviews. This treatment has prompted an unprecedented demand by 44 former state attorneys general for a congressional investigation of the Siegelman case."

The above excerpts from:

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2905.shtml

[JPZenger]

26. Local Employees Not to Blame

I have heard people say that the local news people and station manager at this station are good guys who should not be blamed for this. If the show was censored, it happened above their pay grade. Up until last year, the station was owned by the New York Times.

Here is an excerpt from the article in the Alabama paper linked above:

"60 Minutes" reporter Scott Pelley also quoted Bailey as saying prosecutors met with him 70 times because they were frustrated with him not being able to properly recall the story of seeing the governor holding a hefty check from Scrushy after promising the HealthSouth executive a seat on the board he'd already served on for three other governors, all Republicans."

There are all kinds of injustices that could not fit into the 12 minute 60 Minutes report. One is mentioned in the above quote - the person who supposedly bribed Siegelman for a seat on a State Board had previously served on that same board for 3 Republican governors. Were each of those 3 governors prosecuted? I imagine a little digging would show that the guy contributed to their campaigns, also.

[guitar man]

28. the station manager is ultimately responsible

Trust me, I am a TV station manager and I am ultimately responsible for everything that happens at this station and if I sign off on a station log that I know has been falsified, I could wind up in jail depending on the severity of the offense.

Now, if my superiors, the owners of this station decide not to air a program, that is their right to make that editorial decision. I'll salute, say yes sir and pull the program.That would be an example of a decision made "above my pay grade" I remember when a lot of stations pulled Ted Koppel when he wanted to run the names of all the Iraq war dead. Their station, their choice.

Now, if my superiors were to come in here and ask me to have my people fake an on-air discrepancy to lose a program segment, then lie to cover it up and falsify documents in the process, there's no effing way I'm doing that. I'll pack the stuff in my desk and hit the door, but I'm not going to be a party to any such thing. then I would be wholly responsible for such action.

Now, what if something like this happens "under my pay grade", in other words, what if a freeper Master Control Operator decides he isn't going to let the Siegalman segmant air....he thinks he's being "patriotic" by not airing it? Guess what, as the station manager, I'm still responsible, it's my responsibility to find out what happened and document the truth about it and disseminate that truth to the public best I can.

I don't know exactly what happened down there in Huntsville, but I'm not ready to just say "oh, they're good guys, it was just a malfunction, cut them some slack." Nobody has ever cut me that kind of slack, ever. Something doesn't smell right all the way around about the explanations being given so I will reserve any slack until I hear something I can believe.

[lonestarnot]

31. K & R, but they are too busy vestigat'n steriod use by the sporties

[lala_rawraw]

32. excellent piece, now for the Birmingham News...

http://www.atlargely.com/2008/02/the-smear-job-2.html

please ask folks to contact the editors and demand they address these questions. they are the biggest paper in Alabama and have continued to lie over and over. thank you:D

[EFerrari]

38. How to contact the editorial page at TBN:

"Readers’ Opinions (letters, faxes and e-mail) appear every day on the editorial page. Readers’ Opinions
should be about 200 words and must include the writer’s name, address and daytime telephone number.
The address and phone number will not be published. For questions, call Marvera Goymer at 325-3252, or
email [e-mail]."

[LynneSin]

36. The stupidity of the station has backfired in our benefit

Imagine this - if the station had just allowed the show to air the worst that might have happened would be a few outraged progressive, like ourselves, and perhaps a peak of interest in Alabama, where this story takes place.

But because of the stupidity of that station manager, this story is finally growing the legs it deserves and getting more national attention. Thank you Stan Pylant!

[EFerrari]

37. That's right! And now the equally stupid AL GOP is asking CBS

for their proof and Rove is asking why he should have even been interested. They're making a lot of mistakes. Simpson has records and Abramoff may be available to remind Rove why he was "interested".:evilgrin: