As expected Scott Horton took a much closer look at the details behind the suspicious Alabama blackout of a 60 Minutes broadcast on the Don Siegelman prosecution. Unexpectedly, Horton disproved his hypothesis.
The key figure in the Oak Hill group is Robert M. Bass. His campaign donation profile shows that he has supported both Democrats and Republicans, but that his donations to Democrats far exceed those to Republicans. The complete five-year search can be examined here. Note specifically that he has never supported George W. Bush–either in his races for governor of Texas or president. Sid, Edward and Lee Bass, who have been heavy Bush supporters, do not appear to have any interest in Oak Hill Capital Partners. Consequently, the supposition that the blackout at WHNT was politically driven censorship on the part of the ultimate owners has no merit.
You don’t see that very often.
wvng
But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t politically driven censorship – that backfired pretty spectacularly – on the part of local station assholes.
linda
well, i wouldn’t necessarily come to the same conclusion just based on campaign donations. fine absolving robert bass; it doesn’t mean there weren’t others within that mediahouse eager to toy…
jack fate
Yeah. I guess that rules out the top of the company as being a possible culprit. However, if the area is anything like Western New York (where I live), it’s not the station owner who keeps in touch with the local pols. Rather, it’s the local television staff (reporters, producers, managers et al) that do. It will be interesting to see where this leads.
Elvis Elvisberg
I agree with jack fate.
But I’m operating on the assumption that 12 minutes of dead air is uncommon for WHNT and comparable stations. If I’m wrong, and this is like a power outage during a snowstorm, one of those things that just happens, then hopefully there’s nothing here.
Assuming the worst, though, has just about always been the right policy throughout the Bush era.
TheFountainHead
Oh please, this happened in Alabama. This is not a state that counts!
/Penn
Cassidy
We’re assuming they watch the news.
Cassidy
…using tasers on people who annoy you.
jack fate
Exactly. I guess if there hadn’t been so many blatant manipulations of information through official and commercial sources by Republican interests, I would be more willing to buy the “technical glitch” answer. However. . . Fool me once, fool me twice. . . That’s not to say that I know it’s a conspiracy on the part of WHNT, but I’m not willing to buy it until all the other possiblilities have been fleshed out.
p.lukasiak
Sorry, but there is an “underpants gnome” quality to Hortons logic here.
I mean if A+B=C is true, that does not mean (Not A)+(Not B)=(Not C)
sfHeath
I have to go read Horton now, but the second I read about the blackout originally, I figured WHNT was a “patriotic corporate citizen” that helped “defend America” at the “request of the government.”
I figure the Senate Democrats will be falling over themselves to grant immunity any day now.
DWG
Not having read Horton’s article, I don’t know what else he says that might qualify what you quote. But just on the face of it, I agree with other posters. Indications are, the order did not come from up top to deliberately black out the segment. That doesn’t mean someone down the pipeline could not have acted independently and accidentally on purpose hit the wrong button. Still it’s a credit to Horton that he’s looked further into it.
jackson
Of course there was a technical glitch, not a deliberate and elaborate conspiracy. But what was the technical reason for the “glitch”? Two of four(?) recievers malfunctioned in very different ways.
Why the long delay? I’ve heard so far that “no one was there” That’s not true. Someone cued up a screen crawl across the blacked out video blaming CBS, so why didn’t they switch the feed to one of the backup recievers? It takes seconds, if that. Why would they say the station was unmanned by competent personnel with no active backup online during a prime time broadcast of a heavily promoted program during sweeps?
Most of all, I’d like to know why everyone at the station launched an immediate denial and much outrage at the suggestion of censorship. The reporters couldn’t possibly have known that foul play was entirely out of the question, yet they all mouthed the company line, like good reporters should.
So far I’ve gotten no answers to these questions….
Punchy
I think broadcasting ’60 Minutes’ in Alabama would be akin to broadcasting a lecture on advanced calculus to a 4th grade classroom.
They saw 12 minutes of black screen and thought CBS was doing a segment on deep space.
The Mantis
It’s a sad statement on the quality of discourse we have in this country when plain old intellectual honesty is such a notable exercise.
El Cid
I would have suspected that any political motive by the owners would be more along the lines of a particular grudge against Siegelman, and not the ties with Bush. I.e., hatred of Siegelman for whatever particularistic reasoning, and not fears for Rove.
Nikolai
More conspiracy theories! Maybe the television station did black-out the Siegelman piece for political reasons… by those dirty cheating Democrats! Maybe they knew that they’d create more of a buzz surrounding the story by hiding it from viewers, thereby creating an overwhelming nation-wide demand for the information that would ordinarily have been limited to average citizens in the state and a few political junkies nationwide.
Autozubeh
Wow! what an idea ! What a concept ! Beautiful .. Amazing