Well, all Hell broke loose among North Alabama Democrats and Progressives last night when our local CBS affiliate - WHNT - went on the fritz. Yes, we know that every station has problems at some point, but the timing seemed just a little too convenient given the subject matter....
The Case Against Don Siegelman. Need background? Check out the Left in Alabama archives.... There's probably an official archive, but I can't get to it. Enter "Siegelman" in the search box & you'll be rewarded with riches!
Anyway, it seemed suspicious to many of us - me included - that somehow some undefined "technical difficulty" would kick in right as the story aired. We have, after all, been waiting for it since last fall.
In a recommended diary from today, AgressiveProgressive described how the screen went black, then showed a security camera view of the parking lot for 2/3's of the story, then the station aired the last 5 minutes or so.
We vilified the station then, but they're making good as much as they can.
I just spoke with Doug Dermody, the chair of the Madison County Democratic Executive Committee. WHNT is located in Huntsville, which is in Madison County and is the most heavily populated of North Alabama counties.
Note: thanks to Doug's hard work, Democrats kick butt in this county! Repugs may win in presidential elections, but Democrats rule locally and in state offices!
Anyway, Doug called the station last night and spoke with the station manager a few minutes ago and forwarded this email from the station:
CBS has granted WHNT permission to re-air "The Prosecution of Don Siegelman" again tonight (Monday) during NewsChannel 19 at 6:00.
We thank CBS for their help in this matter.
You'll see an abbreviated newscast (news, weather and shortened sportscast) and then, the entire 13-minute 60 Minutes piece will re-air.
We also thank CBS for allowing us to re-air the piece last night (Sunday) at 10pm.
We thank you for your understanding as we work to straighten this out. WHNT experienced technical problems last night at 6pm with our receiver satellite, which pulls in CBS programming.
We sincerely apologize for this and thank you for your patience. It happened at a very inopportune time, but it was not intentional.
You can also watch the piece now on WHNT.com, if you'd like, through the CBS Video Player:
http://www.whnt.com/...
As Doug noted:
"We have to work with these people at the station, and I'm willing to take their word that this was a big mistake - and not intentional. Their phones have been ringing off the hook and they've gotten a boatload of emails. But they're working to make it right as much as they can. They had me down for an interview this afternoon to discuss it on camera. While I was waiting, I watched the receptionist try to deal with all the calls - most of which, she said, were polite.
I'm not going to pretend to be absolutely convinced that nothing nefarious was going on at the station last night, but I am really glad they've decided to re-air the segment and cut short part of their evening news broadcast to show it again.
From what I've read, the local news broadcasts are real cash cows for local stations and giving up half the time to air the Siegelman story will cost some money.
I think we had an impact - and that's really, really good news. Thanks to everyone who got involved and helped make sure that the people of North Alabama get the chance to see this important story in its entirety.