htmlText : CSS : _alpha

Ok…

I have the following script:
newsMC.newsText.styleSheet = my_css;
newsMC.newsText.multiline = true;
newsMC.newsText.html = true;
newsMC.newsText.htmlText = ‘<.main><a href="">some text</a><.main>’;
newsMC.newsText._alpha = 50;

Does anyone know why the _alpha won’t work? Embed the Font… well then the htmlText doesn’t work.

Thanks
Adam