The News Networks' SOPA Blackout
By Josh Levy, January 9, 2012
You may have heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. Simply put, it's a bill in the House that could open the door to widespread Internet censorship.
Opposition to the bill has reached a boiling point. Millions of activists, hundreds of startups, social media sites like Tumblr, Reddit and Twitter and even big companies like Google, Yahoo! and eBay have joined with Free Press and other Internet advocacy groups against it.
This is one of the biggest tech stories of the year. Yet as a recent report from Media Matters for America shows, TV news has ignored it.
According to the report, SOPA — and Protect IP, its cousin in the Senate — have “received virtually no coverage from major American television news outlets during their evening newscasts and opinion programming.” Among the offenders are ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC.
A likely reason for the media blackout? The big networks — and their parent companies — support these two Internet-censorship bills.
This is what happens when the interests of big business get in the way of the need to inform the public and protect free speech. These same media giants are lobbying the Federal Communications Commission to loosen its ownership rules and allow for even more media consolidation — another issue they’ve failed to cover. If the FCC permits runaway consolidation, media blackouts like the one affecting SOPA could become even more common.
Meanwhile, rank-and-file journalists are coming out strong against these censorship bills. And print media have reported on them. Earlier this month New York Times columnist David Carr wrote that SOPA was “alarming in its reach.” Time, the Atlantic, Forbes and the Boston Globe have all reported on the legislation in the past week.
What is TV news afraid of?
These networks — ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC — need to be held accountable for failing to provide coverage of such damaging legislation.
Free Press is a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. Free Press does not support or oppose any candidate for public office. Through education, organizing and advocacy, we promote diverse and independent media ownership, strong public media and universal access to communications.
Josh Levy
Josh is the Internet Campaign Director for Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund.
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Comments
So basically ACTA will create
So basically ACTA will create a new CIA type police force that will be working for the MPAA/RIAA but will be paid by the citizens of the countries that are participating in ACTA.
sciatic nerve
What are they afraid of?
The TV News thinks that by NOT covering the story that people won't know about it, and that by the time folks learn about it, it'll be too late. This has long been the tragedy of the history of media in the United States going back for the past 170 years at least.
But media activists have helped to change this narrative, especially in recent years, precisely by serving to help spread the word on media and organizing around media issues. Time and again, by making issues like net neutrality, community internet, digital television, media concentration, and now SOPA, issues in their own right, they can enact positive change. I've been lucky to be a part of these efforts. SOPA will hopefully be another chapter in this history and another mark against the corporate media and their code of silence.
SOPA news blackout by major networks
Open and free society requires objective and thorough coverage of news, public issues and debate. News services choosing to blindside the public imperil the republic on which they stand. They erode the long term value of their own corporate brands, and compromise the integrity and trust in all news services.