Scott Horton: The Alternate Reality of the ‘Birmingham News’

[seafan]

The Alternate Reality of the ‘Birmingham News’

By Scott Horton
February 27, 2008

Yesterday I had a conversation with a prominent former federal prosecutor in Birmingham, and in the course of the discussion he turned to the Birmingham News. “I still remember the Civil Rights movement days, when you simply couldn’t trust the Birmingham News. Hell, they were worse than Bull Connor,” he said, referring to the Birmingham police chief famous for brutal tactics, including turning fire hoses on civil rights protestors. “Those times are back.”

The News attempted to expiate its legacy of shame some years ago by mounting an exhibition of photographs of the Civil Rights era that its editors had suppressed.

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Reading the News editorial this morning, I note how little times have changed. The News editorializes about the Siegelman case, presenting its readers with a fraudulent aura of detachment and objectivity. The facts are starkly different from those presented by this editorial.
The Birmingham News did not “report on” the vendetta against Governor Siegelman. Rather, it was a principal vehicle of the vendetta, and its coverage is likely to be studied by journalism students of the future as a reprise of the paper’s hideous and reprehensible coverage of the Civil Rights era. And more to the point, if a special prosecutor is appointed, then the very curious special relationship between the News, certain backroom political forces and the prosecutors who led the charge is likely to be right in its crosshairs.

It’s worth taking a few minutes to walk through the series of absurdities spun out in the editorial, because they are not innocuous, but venomous. Start with the lead-in, which tells you everything:

Former Gov. Don Siegelman is waging a two-front war on a public corruption conviction that sent him to prison–one in the courts, the other in the political arena.

So note: the 60 Minutes broadcast, the reporting by Dan Abrams at MSNBC and by Adam Zagorin at TIME magazine, the series of reports by the New York Times, the inquiries brought in the Senate and House Judiciary Committee is presented by the News as “Don Siegelman’s war.” Don Siegelman, who sits incarcerated in Louisiana, upon whom the Justice Department has imposed an extraordinary gag-rule so he cannot be interviewed by reporters—this man is the force behind all the news and doings in Congress. He is a sort of evil puppet master. What sort of stupid pill do people have to swallow to believe such absurdities?

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The CBS News program charged, very convincingly, that the prosecutors went to the jury with critical evidence, which they knew was false, and that they secured a conviction on the basis of it. It also presented allegations that the prosecutors suppressed exculpatory evidence, which would have made their key witness out to be a liar on his core accusations. The Justice Department would not deny any of this and Franklin would not speak on camera and for the record with CBS News, where he knew he would face tough questions. But then, curiously, the prosecutor turns up speaking to his favorite paper, the Birmingham News, where he is showered with bouquets and fluff balls. And this morning, Karl Rove also turns up giving a fluff ball interview with the Birmingham News. Is that coincidental?

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