Sunday night, the venerable CBS show 60 Minutes broadcast a segment on the case of Don Siegelman, the former governor of Alabama who is now in prison. There is widespread speculation that he was railroaded for being a Democrat in a largely Republican state, and his case was central to last year's furor over the politicization of federal prosecutors.
According to the segment, the local party machinery conspired with Karl Rove and others at the White House to indict Siegelman on trumped-up charges. And if all that wasn't enough, the show accused Rove of trying to get photos of Siegelman in a compromising position for blackmail purposes.
Just as the segment was about to begin, something very strange happened at WHNT in Huntsville, Alabama - the station went off the air. And it came back on the air right after the segment finished. The station originally blamed CBS for going dark, an explanation which fell apart for the simple reason that every other CBS station in the country was working just fine.
With the network mad at station management for trying to pass the buck, the blackout was then blamed on supposed "technical problems," but the station kept changing its mind as to just what those problems were. It appears that in what must be the most perfect case of timing in television history, the alleged problem started and ended just in time to prevent viewers from seeing a very interesting segment.
It sure looks like the station pulled the plug on the broadcast to prevent its viewers from seeing this particular story, and started up again once the segment was over. How nice of them.
Of course, the blackout scheme backfired quite badly, as people are now clamoring to watch the segment any way they can. Even people who never watch shows like 60 Minutes tend to take an extremely dim view of being told what they can and cannot watch in their own homes. And a few disturbing details have started to emerge:
According to the segment, the local party machinery conspired with Karl Rove and others at the White House to indict Siegelman on trumped-up charges. And if all that wasn't enough, the show accused Rove of trying to get photos of Siegelman in a compromising position for blackmail purposes.
Just as the segment was about to begin, something very strange happened at WHNT in Huntsville, Alabama - the station went off the air. And it came back on the air right after the segment finished. The station originally blamed CBS for going dark, an explanation which fell apart for the simple reason that every other CBS station in the country was working just fine.
With the network mad at station management for trying to pass the buck, the blackout was then blamed on supposed "technical problems," but the station kept changing its mind as to just what those problems were. It appears that in what must be the most perfect case of timing in television history, the alleged problem started and ended just in time to prevent viewers from seeing a very interesting segment.
It sure looks like the station pulled the plug on the broadcast to prevent its viewers from seeing this particular story, and started up again once the segment was over. How nice of them.
Of course, the blackout scheme backfired quite badly, as people are now clamoring to watch the segment any way they can. Even people who never watch shows like 60 Minutes tend to take an extremely dim view of being told what they can and cannot watch in their own homes. And a few disturbing details have started to emerge:
- The station is owned by a former business partner of President Bush and a big GOP contributor.
- As commercials touting the segment made clear, the story was guaranteed to make the state GOP party and the White House look bad.
- The station was very critical of Siegelman when he was governor and openly supported his GOP rival.
- Management couldn't keep its story straight about who was responsible for the supposed "technical problems."
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