The only exception was Howard Kurtz, who did his due diligence bringing up the conflicts of interest inherent in the media’s coverage of SOPA and how some networks were better at disclosing such conflicts than others. However, Kurtz only brought this up at the tail end of Reliable Sources for about two minutes, so if you weren’t paying close attention, you might have missed it.
And it’s not just the Sunday shows. On Wednesday, the day of the blackout, none of the primetime shows on MSNBC
But if your argument defending these hosts is “Oh, well they probably had more important issues to cover!” how is it that Lawrence O’Donnell found time to talk about ModernFamilyFuckGate but not the blackout? I completely agree with his position on profanity, but when in the editorial process did they decide “Internet freedom is good, but ABC primetime programming is just a little better”?
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This needs to be part of the conversation. We are talking about the future of the internet. And whether you support SOPA or oppose it, we all use the internet. That’s how you’re able to read this column right now. There has been some coverage of SOPA and the like last week in the lead-up to and in the reaction to Wednesday’s blackout, but it was noticeably marginalized.
It was encouraging to see John King ask the GOP candidates about SOPA during last week’s CNN debate, but with the exception of Ron Paul, I don’t think any of these candidates actually cares about
To Romney’s credit, he did come out against the bill even though its author, Texas Congressman Lamar Smith, endorsed him back in October. But Paul is the only candidate who understands more people really need to be informed about this issue. And they would be, if not for the fact that the media’s coverage of it has been increasingly lacking.
The day of the blackout, Hollywood Reporter’s Eriq Gardner examined the media coverage of SOPA leading up to Wednesday’s protest. It was relatively satisfying for people concerned about the bill to see anchors like Chris Hayes and Erin Burnett bring the topic up for discussion on their programs, but Gardner took issue with how they personally handled the discussion.
Hayes wanted to know why so many people were protesting the “consequences of legislative change,” struggling to figure out a way
to steer the debate where he wanted — or needed — it to go: the potential obligations, for better or worse, of US-based tech companies to do something about foreign-based piracy.
Gardner didn’t have much criticism for Shepard Smith‘s SOPA coverage, but had a few choice words for Erin Burnett, who covered the bill in a segment with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.
Burnett talks about discovering a little website called Pirate Bay, and tosses a softball to Wales about whether the site is a problem. Yes, says Wales. She follows it up by asking for an example of how the legislation would restrict free speech. Not a terrible query, but we wonder if Burnett is really listening to any of the answers given. At an earlier point in the interview when Wales is describing DNS-blocking, Burnett is murmuring assent as if she wants to get onto her next question on her checklist, and after getting a cursory response to the free speech question, Burnett is already onto her next topic by invoking Murdoch’s most basic criticism.In short, Burnett highlights the most heated rhetoric in the debate and in doing so, demonstrates a lack of patience and curiosity about what’s really going on.
On Greta Van Susteren‘s website, the only item that mentions SOPA is a press release from Lamar Smith’s office posted verbatim the day before the blackout. And on the day of the
Bill Maher dismissed worries about internet freedom as a “red herring,” but it’s a very real concern shared by people inside the tech industry and legal experts. Some coverage of this bill has basically been no more than “Well, the bill is called the Stop Online Piracy Act. Why don’t you want to stop online piracy? Huh?” That’s not the point. The difference of opinion is not whether piracy is good or bad, but what is the best method to deal with piracy. But by giving the bill that misleading title, it hoodwinks some of the less aware media personalities into assuming that is what the debate boils down to.
Here’s another example. Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who proposed SOPA in the first place, has another bill out there called the Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act. If all you knew about the bill was its title, you’d automatically assume that anyone opposing it is okay with internet pornographers. Once again, it misses the point. A provision of the
Some blogs and message boards have been trying to bring some attention to the PCIPA and the ACTA treaty being voted on soon by the European Union to create internationally mandated limitations on the internet in other nations, but they’ve gotten almost no traction. Anyone who understands the media knows it has enormous power to shape the agenda. And based on how the media coverage of SOPA is back to almost non-existent, many people might wrongly assume the debate is over and the bill has been shelved for good. SOPA and its Senate counterpart PIPA have not been “killed,” as some media outlets have phrased it. They have merely retreated for now, ready to strike again long after people have stopped caring. SOPA will be revisited a few weeks or months down the road, but the media can still look into all these different government efforts to regulate the internet and try to at least have an open and honest dialogue with people about it.
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