Interesting news yesterday involving the FCC and the "untimely" equipment failure a week ago at an Alabama CBS affiliate WHNT. As you probably remember, the equipment failed right when "60 Minutes" was airing a story about the convition of former govenor Don Siegelman.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Federal Communications Commission official is seeking an inquiry into the blacking out of a politically charged segment of the CBS News magazine "60 Minutes" by a local television station in Alabama.
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said he had asked the chairman of the FCC to open an inquiry into the February 24 incident at WHNT, a CBS affiliate in Huntsville, Alabama, in which civil rights footage from the 1960s was blacked out.
"The FCC now needs to find out if something analogous is going on here," Copps said at a luncheon with media watchdog groups. "Was this an attempt to suppress information on the public airwaves, or was it really just a technical problem?"
I am not exactly sure why the civil rights footage is an issue, unless that is bad editing by Reuters. (The article mentions how civil right footage was blacked out on MS stations in the 60's.They may have conflated the two.)
According to the article, the FCC Chairman said that he would look into it, but is not sure if he will send a letter of inquiry or not.