CBS Local Station Claims Equipment Failure For Blackout During Karl Rove Story

Blogger Larisa Alexandrovna wrote about the blackouts that occured during a 60 Minutes story on how Karl Rove had helped to put Alabama's democratic Governor in jail. Alexandrovna pointed out that CBS in New York first claimed responsibility for the blackout. Now it appears the onus is back on the local Alabama station.

The New York Times reports today:

In an attempt to clear up questions about how an Alabama television station lost its signal at the start of Sunday's edition of "60 Minutes" on CBS, the management of the station, WHNT-TV, issued a statement Thursday citing equipment failure.

The station, in Huntsville, said that after a review, it had concluded that the blackout was related to a similar interruption during a basketball game the day before.

Comments

[LonghornDem]

Remarkably convenient that the equipment failure happened only in Alabama and only during that segment. Truly remarkable.

[WaveFunction]

What they don't tell you:

Karl Rove was at the local station for the earlier black-out as well. He had the days mistaken. Even Karl makes mistakes!

[ShawnMichel]

Fascism is spelled C-B-S.

[choirgirl]

dammmm liberal media, that's what it is..... pay atttention people!

[allknewman]

Seems that MSM are rife with agents witting and unwitting. Really useless for he consumer in many ways.

This short discusses how CNN and FOX dubiously share resources.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rBBuvSyvzg

With respect and kindness to all.

[Waitaminute]

Equipment failure my butt. The story involved Alabama and low and behold the only freaking blackout in the entire world, happened in WHERE? ALABAMA.

I'd like to know what the failure (mechanical or electrical) involved. Acyually, blackout very seldom happen these days due to all of the updates, and modernization. Including the use of servers if and when there ever is a blackout. All they have to do these days, call CBS, tell them you have a transmitting failure. CBS transmit program to t.v station in Alabama via modem and server. (computer).

This blackout excuse would have sound more reasonable, if this was in the early 80s. Electronic technician.

[BarryChamplain]

HuffPo writes:

"Alexandrovna pointed out that CBS in New York first claimed responsibility for the blackout."


THIS IS FALSE.

Larisa was quite clear on this: WHNT *claimed* CBS was responsible, NOT CBS. At any time.

Please correct this a.s.a.p. It's misleading and changes the nature of the story totally .

[Prakosh]

Right on, Barry! You are absolutely correct. The Ababama station tried to blame it on CBS but CBS has never taken responsibility. In fact, they pointed out immediately that since no other station in the US had reported any problems with the signal they were sure that the problem did not originate in New York but was in fact a local problem which seemed to be confined to this one station. There is no doubt in my mind that this was a clear cut issue of prior restraint, and as such should be prosecuted. But I know that won't ever happen in Alabama. It is also more clear why these people might be less informed than the rest of America. They are beyond the pale, and nothing gets in...

[BarryChamplain]

Okay, just so you understand, CBS did not take responsibility because they are CORRECT in that they were not, in fact, responsible.

See the comment above from the broadcast engineer, re: redundancy. I didn't want to go there, myself, because I wanted to stress that the report in HuffPo is glaringly erroneous.

But it IS true that network redundancy is de rigeur in broadcast operations, and if a network has no indications of having gone dark, and no reports of same from anyone else... it just plain DIDN'T.

[dotmafia]

What a complete crock of bull$hit! More and more everyday, America is turning into some third-rate dictatorship/communist country where free speech and information is being blocked and kept from the masses. Pathetic excuses.

[Atlas Scruggs]

There has to be some kind of FCC penalty for these kinds of shenanigans. The broadcast was pretty obviously sabotaged, according to a previous post.

[23000Days]

What's an FCC penalty? Isn't that something from way back when the FCC had regulations to enforce?

[JGatsby]

"There has to be some kind of FCC penalty for these kinds of shenanigans. The broadcast was pretty obviously sabotaged, according to a previous post." There probably is but remember the FCC is part of the executive branch so... On a related note John McCain has indisputably abused public financing in a manner that is a criminal offense, punishable by up to five years in jail. But the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) is also under the executive branch and under the "government does not work" administration there are basic positions going unfilled and without those positions its impossible to prosecute anyone for those types of crimes.

[pbeat]

Reminds me of Pee Wee Herman's Big Adventure when Pee Wee is on the phone and creates his own static, I CAN'T HEAR YOU,HEH HEH, I CAN'T HEAR YOU HEH HEH.....

They are laughing at us Pull the signal off the air as soon as that story goes on and then put it back on after the story is over and claim there was static for the 8 minutes it took to tell the Siegelman story. HEH HEH

[RantingTommy]

When there are more churches than schools, there is a problem.

[AnnArky]

Bush ate his own homework because he wasn't smart enough to consider using the dog.

[FearlessFreep]

LOL!

[ghostsofamerica]

LET'S HEAR ABOUT JUDGE FULLER! Come on 60 Minutes, Give us the WHOLE STORY.


(tell them to contact waynemadsenreport.com if they well researched info)


I think 60 minutes owes us the '(WHOLE)sic' Siegelman story:


ADDRESS:
60 Minutes
524 West 57th St.
New York, NY 10019

EMAIL: cbsnews.com.com
PHONE: [phone]

[angelbravo]

somebody struck a nerve

[biglover]

CBS has been trying to tell the whole story. They were going to broadcast this story weeks ago yet the big corporatist heads of CBS cowered to the Bushies - so finally CBS came back and told 60 Minutes it could air the show conspicuously on the night of the Oscars, hoping no one would be watching. There is no liberal media. The media is owned by big business and big business owns George Bush & CO.

[ghostsofamerica]

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early


http://www.theonion.com/content/video/diebold_accidentally_leaks?utm_source=embedded_video


almost funny humor

[TLV]

What is the saddest thing about this case, besides a possible innocent man going to prison? The fact that Alabama's school systems are abysmal failures and he was trying to do something to improve them.

My husband has a brother who's lived in Alabama for 20 years. They had to take their son out of public school to keep him out of trouble and able to make decent grades. They complained about the schools all the time even though they lived in a nice area of Montgomery. Imagine the less affluent parts of the state...and believe me, there are plenty of them.

Could it be that those who wanted homeschooling programs that rip off state money were the ones who wanted Siegelman ruined? Home schooling online programs seem to be a right-wing obsession in my state and there is at least one very crooked man who used to run a big voucher-funded operation. His business was called White Hat but Google can't find it anywhere now. That's very strange.

[pbeat]

My google works better than your google

http://www.whitehatmgmt.com/about/

[TLV]

Thanks. I guess I didn't think that was it when I saw it.

[Citizenofreality]

TLV you should also take a look at the allegations that Abramoff and some of his cronies are involved. Look it up it's a very interesting and complicated story.

[MsLiz]

I have been in Alabama since I was three. You have to be careful in picking a residence in Alabama if you have school aged children. Some schools are excellent, like those in my admittedly white flight suburb, but many are terrible. It is a matter of ancient politics. Our constitution was written during Jim Crow and is designed to give power to large landowners, who are now mostly corporations like ALFA. They want low property taxes, and property taxes support schools. The powerful put their kids in segregation academies or live in white flight suburbs. One exception is Huntsville, the Silicon Valley of the south, where WHNT is located. I grew up there; it is heavily populated by engineers and scientists from all over the country. Strangely, it has a high incidence of Asperger's Syndrome in the children of these techno-geeks.

Thank you for reading.

[ghostsofamerica]

"...February 25, 2008 -- CBS News airs Siegelman piece on 60 Minutes

CBS News aired its long-awaited segment on the Governor Don Siegelman story. Siegelman is the former Democratic Governor of Alabama and the highest profile political prisoner of the Bush regime.

It is clear that the GOP in Alabama never wanted this segment to air. WMR previously reported that Alabama Republican Governor Bob Riley and Republican Senator Jeff Sessions pulled out all the stops with the White House and CBS corporate executives to kill the Siegelman story. Although 60 Minutes failed to cover certain important elements of the story, including the major conflicts of interest of Siegelman trial judge Mark Fuller and the 2002 theft of the gubernatorial election from Siegelman by Riley and Republican operatives close to Karl Rove.

During the 60 Minutes airing, the Siegelman segment aired by CBS affiliate in Mobile, WKRG-TV, was plagued by static. In addition, the Huntsville, Alabama CBS affiliate experienced a "technical" problem that resulted in the entire segment being blacked out. The station, WHNT-TV, is owned by Oak Hill Capital Partners, which, in turn, is partly-owned by Robert Bass. Bass and his brothers are friends and major supporters of George W. Bush.

WHNT-TV ran the following notice on its website after the blackout: "We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring a report titled, 'The Prosecution of Don Siegelman.' NewsChannel 19 lost our program feed from CBS. Upon investigation, WHNT has learned that the CBS receiver that allows us to receive programming from CBS failed. WHNT engineers responded as quickly as possible to restore the feed at 6:12 p.m. Our sincere apologies to our viewers across the Tennessee Valley."

Bass was the subject of a WMR report on February 8, 2008 that pointed out the close business connections between the Bush and Clinton families:

"In 2006, Chelsea [Clinton] left McKinsey to take a job with Marc Lasry's Avenue Capital Group, a $12 billion hedge fund. Lasry, a financial donor to the Democrats and the Clintons, was a founder of Amroc, a "distressed stock broker." Amroc's partner included Keystone, Inc., an investment firm linked to the Robert M. Bass Group. Robert M. Bass is the billionaire son of Texas oil tycoon, Perry Richardson Bass. Robert M. Bass is a long time contributor to George W. Bush's political campaigns. His brother Ed was a Yale classmate of Bush and remains a close friend. Robert Bass is founder of Aerion Corp., a Pentagon contractor."

The Bass connection to Clinton's daughter is not the only link between the Clinton family and Siegelman's persecutors. On September 14, 2007, WMR reported, "Alabama attorney and former Alabama Republican Party assistant Jill Simpson almost acquired as her Washington, DC counsel a longtime attorney considered a 'clean up' man for the Bush family and its coterie of high-level politicians." The attorney, Texan David Laufman, a former CIA attorney, Assistant US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and failed George W. Bush nominee to be Inspector General of the Defense Department, was recommended to be the head of Simpson's defense advisory group in Washington by none other than Bill Clinton, who, in the past, proclaimed that he was a good friend of Siegelman.

WMR has learned from two reliable sources that this editor, targeted by Rove after I began investigating the George W. Bush administration in detail four years ago, ordered a thorough background check by GOP operatives. I was recently informed that these dirty tricks "operations" continue to the present time.

The following videos are the Siegelman 60 Minutes piece (Part I and II): ,,"


see it again on 60 minutes website



From www.waynemadsenreport.com

[TLV]

Thanks, ghostsofamerica.

[whitewaterwillie]

I'm sure that in the spirit of full disclosure, the CBS affiliate will re-air the segment. And Porky is about to sprout wings.

[biglover]

I think the link with Chelsea Clinton is a bit of a stretch.

[biglover]

I think the link to Chelsea Clinton is a bit of a stretch.