60 Minutes ** FCC's Michael Copps (D) Requests Investigation of WHNT-TV Black Out

[L. Coyote]

Copps Pushes for Investigation of WHNT-TV Outage During 60 Minutes
‘Technical Difficulty’ Prevented Viewers of WHNT-TV Huntsville, Ala., from Seeing Feb. 24 60 Minutes
Story About Alleged Campaign by Karl Rove Against Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/3/2008 -- http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6537704.html?industryid=47168


Federal Communications Commission member Michael Copps formally asked FCC chairman Kevin Martin to investigate a "technical difficulty" at WHNT-TV Huntsville, Ala., that prevented some Alabama viewers from seeing a Feb. 24 60 Minutes story about an alleged campaign by Karl Rove, former aide to President George W. Bush, against Don Siegelman, former Democrat governor of Alabama, who was eventually jailed for corruption.
Michael Copps

Copps was reacting to a Feb. 27 editorial in The New York Times that questioned whether the move was instead political censorship, invoking a 1955 story about WLBT-TV Jackson, Miss., refusing to run a news report about desegregation, saying that it had had cable trouble.

At a National Press Club forum on local TV and public-interest requirements, Copps said, "The FCC needs to find out if something analogous is going on here. Was this an attempt to suppress information on the public airwaves, or was there really a technical problem?"

He added that if it turned out to be intentional, the agency would need to determine "who made the decision and why. ...................

[slipslidingaway]

1. Good K&R n/t

[me b zola]

2. K&R

[fascisthunter]

3. K&R (nt)

[BOSSHOG]

4. The truth is a technical difficulty to CONSERVATIVES

if there are any lurkers out there who want to set me straight then huff and puff and blow me.

[Junkdrawer]

5. Dear Denise Vickers: How's that dark blue suit search going?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2918171&mesg_id=2922397

[KamaAina]

6. Well, well, well. Look who owns the station.

"Local TV, LLC" is a holding company of Oak Hill Capital Partners, headed by one Robert Bass.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bass

Bass was born into an extremely wealthy family with an uncle, Sid Richardson, worth $810 million. He and his three brothers Lee, Ed, and Sid Bass all attended Yale University, where they solidified their moneyed and political connections. Ed Bass was a classmate and personal friend of George W. Bush, and the brothers, especially Lee Bass, helped Bush financially both before and throughout his political career. Working together with his brothers as Bass Brothers Enterprises and independently, Robert Bass made many lucrative investments through his own firm, the Robert M. Bass Group, later Keystone Inc. Most recently, in 2004 he started Aerion Corp to develop supersonic corporate jets, which is the beneficiary of lucrative Federal DARPA contracts.

Who would ever have thought? :sarcasm:

edit: emphasis

[L. Coyote]

8. Bob is a huge DEM donor! Guess again (and don't tick him off).

12/19/2003 $20,000 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte
10/26/2004 $20,000 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte
9/26/2005 $22,500 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte
9/27/2006 $22,500 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte

On edit = (and don't tick him off). LOL

[Junkdrawer]

9. "The Bass brothers pumped $210,000 into Bush's gubernatorial campaigns"....

http://www.utwatch.org/utimco/bass.html

[L. Coyote]

11. Several are Rs, not Robert.

[femrap]

7. That little Martin irritates me...

wonder how he'll let his buds in AL off the hook. Glad that Copps is making a stink. The airwaves, after all, do belong to the people!

[PSPS]

10. Good luck with that. Martin is a "loyal bushie" -- unqualified crony to the core.

And what's with this "Democrat governor" reference? I see that McCain is doing that all the time now too.

[EFerrari]

12. Kick

[L. Coyote]

14. "

[KharmaTrain]

13. I Like Michael Copps...

I got to shake his hand last summer at YKos...and he fought the good fight against Martin's (and McCain's) ramrodding of new monopoly laws through last December.

That said, the WLBT case (a case study for any Broadcast 101 student) was about a news story and the station's conduct...while this one is supplied by a network and it technical glitch question in this one instance isn't quite the same as WLBT that had a systemic problem of pre-empting shows it didn't agree with. Also, WHNT did somewhat indemnify itself by repeating the segement not once, but twice after the problem was "detected".

This is purely a legal look at things...not that the station or someone working there that night didn't purposely pull the plug. There are other ways to get at the station...or any station...that would cause more damage. One would be an inspection of the facilities...FCC inspectors rarely leave without a laundry list of violations (costing the station thousands)...or investigate the station's "Public Inspection File"...see if letters of viewers complaints about this issue were filed or shitcanned. That's a big no-no.

Unless someone materializes that admits to pulling the plug, the fact the station did replay the missing segments so quickly is sure to play big in a judges mind in either issuing a fine or upholding one.