Alabama station's blackout of CBS report on ex-governor has some seeing another conspiracy

On Sunday night, the CBS News show "60 Minutes" aired a story suggesting that former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman was wrongly convicted of corruption last year because of a politically driven agenda of the Bush administration. Instead of the segment, viewers of Huntsville's CBS affiliate, WHNT-19, "saw a blank screen . . . and the chance to declare yet another conspiracy," reports Patricia C. McCarter of The Huntsville Times.

The station's general manager said equipment problems caused the blackout and not the content of the report, called "The Prosecution of Dan Siegelman," which was favorable to the now-imprisoned Democrat. WHNT-TV has replayed the show in its entirety twice and posted links to the segment on its Web site, but the Alabama Democratic Party "is asking the Federal Communications Commission to seek a formal inquiry into the situation," McCarter writes.

"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," Alabama Democratic Party Executive Director Jim Spearman said 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)

The New York Times, which once owned the Huntsville station, was skeptical in an editorial today. “After initially blaming the glitch on CBS in New York, the affiliate said it learned 'upon investigation,' and following a rebuke from the network, that 'the problem was on our end.' . . . If the blackout was intentional, it may also have been counterproductive. Rather than take attention away from allegations that Mr. Siegelman was the victim of a partisan campaign, WHNT’s technical glitch seems to lend support to the charge.” (Read more)

UPDATE, Feb. 28: The Press-Register of Mobile saw it differently, in an editorial today. The paper said the story "failed to present convincing evidence of corruption. The CBS program's descent into tabloid journalism consisted of uncorroborated and mostly repackaged charges about the prosecution . . . by career federal prosecutors who were spurred on by stories in the Press-Register." (Read more)