No Comment — February 25, 2008, 10:20 am
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From an email response by the General Manager of WHNT, channel 19, the CBS affiliate covering northern Alabama, which blacked out most of the 60 Minutes segment dealing with the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don E. Siegelman and falsely told its viewers that it had “network problems”:
I can certainly understand your reason for being upset with us. Tonight at approximately 6pm, WHNT lost the network feed of 60 Minutes for twelve minutes at the beginning of a segment on former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. Upon investigation, WHNT learned that the CBS receiver that allows us to receive programming from the CBS Network’s New York feed failed. WHNT engineers responded as quickly as possible to diagnose the problem and were able to restore the feed at 6:12pm. I would like to personally extend my sincere apologies to you both and all of our viewers across the Tennessee Valley. Therefore, we will air the segment in its entirety tonight during the 10pm news.
Again, I hope you’ll accept my apology for the unfortunate timing of our technical problems tonight. If you can’t catch our 10pm News tonight, simply go to www.whnt.com and towards the bottom, click “Watch CBS Shows” then News, then 60 Minutes.
Sincerely,
Stan Pylant, President, General Manager, WHNT-TV, Huntsville, AL
The station did rebroadcast the segment, at 10:20 Central time, after it finished reporting its police blotter and weather. Just late enough on a night before a work day that it could be certain no one would be watching, since their viewers had by that time gone to bed, if they were not viewing the Oscars.
More from Scott Horton:
No Comment — April 12, 2013, 11:11 am
A new report from Seton Hall University exposes government surveillance of attorney-client conversations
No Comment, Six Questions — March 18, 2013, 9:00 am
Rashid Khalidi on how the United States sustains the failure of the Israel-Palestine peace process
No Comment, Six Questions — February 4, 2013, 9:00 am
Alex Gibney on his documentary investigating the Roman Catholic Church’s handling of child sex-abuse cases
Years of consideration preceding the inclusion of the word “phat” in Random House’s 1996 Compact Unabridged Dictionary:
Scientists created crash helmets that stink when cracked and fruit flies to whom blue light smells delicious.
In Belize, a construction company bulldozed a 2,300-year-old Mayan temple to make road fill.
“This is the heart of the magic factory, the place where medicine is infused with the miracles of science, and I’ve come to see how it’s done.”
