There were quite a few diaries on this story Sunday and Monday so this follows those recommended diaries as a sort of an update to them, but the story actually seems to be getting some legitimate attention. For today the NYTimes has published an editorial detailing the whole snafu, and therefore pushing it into the MSM. What is interesting is that they lead into it with the historic parallel of an earlier 'blackout' meant to squelch a racial desegregation story in 1955 in Mississippi:
In 1955, when WLBT-TV, the NBC affiliate in Jackson, Miss., did not want to run a network report about racial desegregation, it famously hung up the sign: "Sorry, Cable Trouble." Audiences in northern Alabama might have suspected the same tactics when WHNT-TV, the CBS affiliate, went dark Sunday evening during a "60 minutes" segment that strongly suggested that Don Siegelman, Alabama’s former Democratic governor, was wrongly convicted of corruption last year...
But it gets better, and the editorial cuts to the chase quickly, after explaining that the actual report was later broadcast (later Sunday night, opposite the Oscars, and then again Monday at 6PM after further outcry), and we get the expected boilerplate denial:
Stan Pylant, WHNT’s president and general manager, assured viewers that "there was no intent whatsoever to keep anyone from seeing the broadcast."
And in a good bit of journalism, the Times adds:
WHNT is owned by Oak Hill Capital Partners, a private equity firm whose lead investor is one of the Bass brothers of Texas. The brothers are former business partners of George W. Bush and generous contributors to Republican causes....
Karl Rove is also mentioned in this editorial as a probable orchestrater of the Siegelman conviction (according to the 60 minutes report), so again we get some journalism here.
But what I most love is the way the editorial closes with this zinger:
...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.
Bravo NYTimes.