Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer
[Now including a number of UPDATES at the bottom of the article…]Part 1 (9:51), Part 2 (3:56)
UPDATES: (by Brad) Incredibly, Larisa Alexandrovna is reporting that the broadcast of the Siegelman segment — and only the Siegelman segment — got blacked out in Alabama. “Transmission Difficulties”…
NOTE: The 60 Minutes report does not delve into the Election Fraud issues that have emerged in the case, including allegations, on video tape, from Siegelman himself, claiming that his “election was stolen electronically,” after having gone to bed on Election Night the winner in 2004, only to wake up the next morning to find that he had “lost” after a Republican Board of Elections member, in the middle of the night, allegedly all by himself, re-tallied the votes. Links to that angle on the story, along with the White House and Karl Rove’s relation to all of it, can be found in “Related stories” linked at the bottom of this article.
Many more Monday updates on the “Alabama Blackout” situation, including statements from both CBS and the changing story of their affiliate station, WHNT, now follow below as well. More still being added as notable…
UPDATE 2/25/08: Scott Horton has much more at Harper’s today, including this on the Alabama blackout, about which he says that CBS News told him there was “no transmission difficulties” [emphasis added]…
UPDATE 2/25/08 12:53pm PT: NY Times’ Mike Nizza confirms the incident, and now reports that the local Alabama affiliate, WHNT, is offering a fresh reason for the problem today:
“We can assure you there was no intent whatsoever to keep anyone from seeing the broadcast,†Stan Pylant, WHNT’s president, told The Huntsville Times.
But the assurance alone seemed unlikely to appease all of his viewers. According to Mr. Pylant, the problem was fixed quickly, resulting in only 12 minutes of down time. But that mostly covered the controversial segment, which lasted about 13 minutes.
Nizza goes on, in the same blog item, to note a parrallel incident elsewhere…
After two broadcasters who had been banned by the Pakistani government appeared on the Aaj TV channel there on Friday night, the channel’s programming was suddenly cut off, and replaced with a message, according to CNN:
Dear Users, Please note Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) temporarily suspended transmission of independent news TV channels till further instructions.
The message, notable not only because it comes by way of the NY Times: Welcome to Americastan.
===
Recently related at The BRAD BLOG:
12/14/07:‘Bush League Justice’ Video – MSNBC Investigates Controversial Siegelman Prosecution In Alabama
Evidence Suggests The Former Democratic Governor Was Unjustly Prosecuted By Political Partisans
Karl Rove’s Involvement In Case Questioned
12/22/07: How To Rig a Republican Election (or Two)
Former Alabama Gov. in Newly Unearthed Video: ‘My Election Was Stolen Electronically, No Other Sugar-Coated Way to Say It’
2/22/08: American Gangsters
RAW STORY’s related investigative series, “The Permanent Republican Majority”:
Part 1: How a coterie of Republican heavyweights sent a governor to jail
Part 2: Daughter of jailed governor sees White House hand in her father’s fall
Part 3: Running elections from the White House
Saw it on the tube this evening. Hadn’t looked much at it before, but there is, of course, no surprise here. Rove led an all-out attack on a Dem that couldn’t be beat at the ballot box, and now he’s in jail…
An outrage!
And any Dem that runs for Pres had best get ready for the same kind of attack. Meanwhile, we all hope for justice in AL…
shw
American flag waived, Amurkan flag waved …
Political Prisoner Don Siegelman: Will the 60 Minutes Spotlight Make a Difference?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389×2909551
Hey everyone; guess who didn’t get to see it? Yeah, the State of Alabama; see here:
http://atlargely.com/
Yup, blacked out in Alabama for just that portion of the show! See here
What the fuck? Could it be more obvious?
I live in rural north alabama about 20 miles south of huntsville. Most of the Siegelman part of 60 minutes was blacked out. It was the only channel that was having any problems. Something strange in the neighborhood and it can’t be good.
The Siegelman story was BLACKED OUT in alabama WTF ! ! !
Whats with this country! 1:14
The FCC better pull the licenses of all the OWNERS of those channels period, and never give them back !!!.
As I mentioned before, about a 10 minute outage occurred thruout Fla. on election morning 2006.
Strange, yes, but it was my first thought that told me that they were probably getting ready to hack into the state elections system that bothered me the most, as my instincts are usually correct about things.
They (f-word) own the whole system lock, stock and barrel so why would anyone be surprised ?
…it’ll be interesting during rerun time next summer if the same thing happens during that segment.
Stephen Colbert was right. Real Journalism is the exception, not the rule anymore. But the Candle isn’t totally out. WHNT in Huntsville may have censored the Siegelman Story on CBS’s 60 Minutes, but the fact that 60 Minutes carried it offers hope. We have to keep the flame alive and get Don Siegelman out of Jail.
Transmission Difficulties . . . Huh… sounds More like;
{There’s a legal term of art I save for special occasions such as this}
CockSuckingMotherFucking . . . BOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooollShit ! ! !
Not to loose sight of Don Siegelman, I have no idea on how to clean up the DOJ (especially if it’s controlled by Bush appointees)
So I would like everyone that get’s this sad story to shift gears and lay down a few gauntlets that may put an end to the fascist controlled media that we all hate.
Maybe I am way off base, but how could we get millions of Americans off their couches and into their local stations to sign their public records?
It seems that making these records available online would be a big step towards this goal.
Since the FCC has asked the public to monitor stations and stations make it too difficult for the public to navigate their way to the public record of the station. (Sometimes you need to get an appointment to gain access to their file)
There’s an argument against online public record (file) saying that its a burden for small stations to maintain such a file online. Myself I think this is ridiculous, it might have been a burden back in 2000 when most Americans were on dialup but a 14000 page (on average 2000 statistics) record is not a burden in todays world when considering open source software and cheap hosting.
Bringing further into the fray, the new HD signals that are coming, just how much have they spent on that? So where’s the truth lay? They can’t afford to have their public file online because it’s a burden, or because they would get so many complaints because they are doing a bad job and not serving the public interest. It sure ain’t financial if they can afford to upgrade all their equipment to HD. In my opinion, HD is actually more of a burden on the public (in this rotten economy) than it is on stations.
But one thing I would like to see if this could be gotten through the FCC is that these files be in ASCII TEXT not PDF. That way they are search-able using grep or similar.
There’s also a question about getting exemptions for political ad’s and also a whole other problem with privacy issues about complaint’s and suggestions to the station. My personal thought here is I don’t care how busy the station is, if they are running political ads, it ought to be in the file, every ad, every time. And the privacy issue could be solved in a number of ways. I ain’t here to develop this platform for them, but I don’t think this argument should be allowed to be used to BLOCK angry public comments. (Which we all know in our heart’s–that’s exactly what they want to do.)
Anyway, just my thought. I hope somebody out there runs with it. I personally don’t have the time and strength to deal with it. Maybe someone out there knows the right people to make this fly.
Oh an by the way that FISA bill ad is running out here in Sacramento too. So where ever it came from it’s made it’s way to the West Coast.
If they will do this to an honorable governor and let Libby off, and not prosecute those in contempt of american government, what do you suppose they will do to us?
Sweet home GObama …
What happened to the part of the story where (I thought it was Jill Simpson’s) house was blown up or set on fire or something, and her car was run off the road after she came out with her allegations? Also, Brad the first clip is now saying “no longer available.” Hmmm… are they censoring you now too?
Okay its working again. I’m sooooooo sure that In-their-pocket mukassey will investigate this just like he did for the cia torture mess.
It is time for Democrats in Alabama and nationally to demand fair media coverage.
Here are some possible steps:
Organize letter-writing campaigns to the FCC challenging the broadcast licenses of the TV stations or cable outlets involved.
Write letters to the Editor of newspapers nationally and in Alabama. I believe papers like the Huntsville Times would publish them.
Picket media outlets. Call all surrounding media outlets and national ones to publicize the picketing.
Demand Congressional investigations from your members of Congress directly and at all public gatherings.
Sincerely,
Stephen Crockett
Co-Host, Democratic Talk Radio
The CBS story was LAME.
No mention of the theft of Siegelman’s 2002 election, which Siegelman himself has spoken about publicly (unlike many Dems who are so worried about be called ‘sore losers’ when their elections are stolen.)
No mention that the trial transcript HAS STILL NOT BEEN RELEASED which would allow Siegelman to appeal his conviction.
It seemed as if CBS intentionally picked the weakest parts of the Siegelman story to run.
Shame on the house that Murrow built.
Oh yeah, their 24esque FISA ad is running here in PA too. FISA works just fine, but ignoring pre- 9/11 warnings was the original problem, not FISA!
At least they put the basics of the story out there for the public.
The blockage in Alabama is amazing and shows the extent to which the Bush mafia will go to get what they want. Doesn’t it make you wonder what else they’ve done that went unnnoticed?
the entire injustice department needs to be evacuated and wiped clean.
the next congress should enact legislation that enables Pres Obama to fire the entire lot of em, rehiring only those career doj members not tainted by this administration.
I would really like to see EVERY PIECE OF LEGISLATION THAT HAS BEEN ENACTED SINCE 2000 REPEALED.
CLEAN SWEEP 2008
In this neck of the woods (West Coast), the story was effectively blacked out in that CBS scheduled it to run at the same time as the Oscars. How many people watched 60 Minutes last night? How many less than usual? I wonder if the 60-Minute blackout will be mentioned in Alabama’s newspapers.
The Banana Republic is still on the march. What do the Rovian forces of election sabotage have in store for November? Another Diebold hack? another exercise in caging? another excursion to the Extreme Court? Perhaps they’ll manage to get Obama put in jail.
FALSIFIED RECORDS… The FCC requires that stations keep a log of all on air and maintenance activities. These records will have to be falsified to keep this story… someone’s name is on that record and these records may be publicly viewable.
If they are falsified and the FCC look the other way, that implicates the FCC, — this came from the whitehouse…
Here are the rules:
B. STATION LOGS/RECORDS:
STATION LOGS include entries pertaining to equipment status, equipment calibration, the Emergency Alert
System (EAS) and, when applicable, the recording of tower light outages. STATION RECORDS include, but are
not limited to chief operator designations and equipment performance measurements.
The station logs and records are to be kept in an orderly and legible manner, in suitable form and with sufficient
detail. Station logs and records are to be retained for a period of two years, unless specified otherwise, and
they shall be made available for inspection or duplication at the request of the FCC or its representatives.
Required logs and records are to be readily available for inspection. [See 73.1225, 73.1226, 73.1590, 73.1800,
73.1820 and 73.1840]
Dear Brad Blog Friends,
WHNT Huntsville has an ‘apology’ . They say their satellite receiver failed–any techies comment on this?
They say they re-broadcast the missing segment on Sunday on Ch. 19, their NewsChannel, at 10PM.
They also post a link to the CBS video.
Link to WHNT web site.
http://www.whnt.com/Global/story.asp?S=7920045
————-
“May I see your papers please…”
There is a story in the NY Times which shows that at first they said there was a problem nationally, the CBS HQ said not so, it was a local choice not to run it:
(NYTimes). It is official, it was deliberate fascism followed by deliberate coverup. It is now a conspiracy that includes WHNT Channel 19 in Alabama.
it’s not just in alabama, it was blocked in mass. also, no telling how many stations nation wide blocked it.
HERE IS THE LATEST ANSWER FROM THE TV STATION -from the Web Content Manager no less….
———————————————–
Thank you for your e-mail. Please allow me to explain what happened. There is no cover-up here, and mistakes do happen.
We are also going to air a piece on this tonight at 6pm.
This was not CBS’s fault. It was a problem on our end, and that’s the truth. It was a technical issue with a satellite receiver, and there was no engineer in the building to fix it. Had it been a weekday with plenty of staff onhand, there would have been someone of that nature here and the program would have been fixed much more quickly.
There was no conspiracy here. We had a technical problem, and it happened at a very, very inopportune time. There was a similar issue that happened Saturday night with the Kentucky basketball game, but we haven’t received a single complaint about that incident.
Yet, it did happen and we regret it.
CBS bent over backwards to allow us at WHNT to re-air the entire 13 minute interview on our 10pm news last night. We have also made a link to the online video very prominent at the top of our homepage.
On the subject of our public file, you are more than welcome to come by the station and see them if you’d like.
I’ll be happy to answer any further questions you have. I assure you we want to resolve your complaint, and would like you to continue watching NewsChannel 19 in the future.
Sincerely,
Claire Aiello
Web Content Manager, WHNT.com
I anticipate hearing DHinMI over at DailyKOS talk about how this is a coincidence, and then responding with insults at everyone who disagrees.
I doubt DailyKos would even cover this, and if they do, it will be buried. Or it will be used to talk about “conspiracy nutters.” One thing I have noticed in my few years on the internet is that the really important stories that can’t possibly be debunked get either ignored or noisy.
Public airwaves my a$$. It’s obvious that the FCC under the current regime will not look into it, but I hope that the next admin looks into this (and about a trillion other things).
Thanks for continuing with this. I am on the west coast and turned to 60 minutes for the story. I think that 60 Minutes left a lot to be reported on later. I hope later comes.
It’s time to keep an eye out for this happening again.
I will be surprised if WA St. Governor Christine Gregorie doesn’t find herself in a similar situation as Siegelman. She only won because Luke Esser (Huckabee can’t win, McCain is supposed to) screwed up and didn’t fix the vote counting well enough. A recent poll put her about 10 points up on Rossi and all others, and Esser said the the pollster was corrupt and lying. I don’t have the direct quote, but it was a doozie.
Kerry got 53% of the vote, and Kerry Voters would not have voted for Dino Rossi, the swing to him would have been too great for most people’s political compass, even if one hated Gregorie (there was a complaint that Gregorie was too conservative for Kerry voters). The big vote changes for Gregorie came from the counties that voted the heaviest for Kerry. Not a surprise. Exit polls, I read, indicated that almost no one split their vote from President to Governor. So how could the Governor’s race be so close?
One of those counties was of course King County, who had Dean Logan counting the votes. Yes the same Dean Logan as:
American Gangsters! Organized Crime!
Paul Martin #28–It wasn’t blocked in the Boston area.
Brad, a much better person to write to than Rhonda Barnatt would be Michael Copps of the FCC; likewise, Jonathan Adelstein.
Using the public airwaves for political purposes is a violation of license requirements. In this case, WHNT seems to have used them for criminal purposes.
Hmmm… #29 whnt ~ Crock of Shit Soup . . .
whnt’s Don Siegelman, cover up of the cover up = Cover up squared
$5.00 fucking dollars for the Sunday NY times
… only the best for my Cockatoos & Canaries . . .
Is she trustworthy? My fake-alarm is ringing. I wouldnt trust her telling the truth unless she has something concrete, and as I understand there is only her word against Rove.
Could she be like those documents about Bushes service which were fake even though words written in them might have been more or less correct?
When her(trumpeted by the MSM) story goes down, the whole story goes down and then anybody defending Siegelman is an automatic loonie who doesnt need to be taken seriously.
(Just my uneducated opinion which is based on very limited info about these two cases, I hope I´m proven wrong.)
I’m afraid the only satisfactory solution for this vast criminal conspiracy must await the swearing in of President Barack Obama next January. After pardoning Gov. Don Siegelman, he can appoint him Attorney General of the United States. Pay back time.
Hey y’all, my apologies if someone’s already posted this..
I’m in southern Tennessee and WHNT/Ch. 19 is one of our local stations. I don’t usually watch evening news, but I turned it on 19 at 6 just to see if there was anything about the Siegelman broadcast.
They announced at the beginning of the show that they’d be running a commercial-free version of the local news, then at the end of the broadcast, with permission from CBS, ran the entire segment that involved Don Siegelman.
Sunday night is a church night and this is the Bible belt, so a lot of people weren’t home to watch 60 minutes on Sunday anyway. Also, there are a LOT of people who have a long commute to work or attend university in Huntsville, and go to bed early because they have to leave early. Many would have missed the 10 o’clock rebroadcast, especially since they might not have known about it.
However, I can tell you that most likely, a significant percentage of the population that missed the 60 minutes segment and rebroadcast Sunday saw it on the evening news yesterday, especially after so much attention was drawn to the problems Sunday night.
Whether the blackout was intentional or not I don’t know, but whatever caused it, it’s starting to look like it was one of the best things that could have happened as far as getting the information out there and getting people talking about it.