The Young Turks' Cenk Uygur speaks with Media Matters' Eric Boehlert about their recent report on our news networks all but ignoring the awful pending legislation called the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. Here's more from their report:
REPORT: News Networks Ignore Controversial SOPA Legislation:
Controversial legislation that the co-founder of Google has warned "would put us on a par with the most oppressive nations in the world" has received virtually no coverage from major American television news outlets during their evening newscasts and opinion programming. The parent companies of most of these networks, as well as two of the networks themselves, are listed as official "supporters" of this legislation on the U.S. House of Representatives' website.
As the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) makes its way through Congress, most major television news outlets -- MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, CBS, and NBC -- have ignored the bill during their evening broadcasts. One network, CNN, devoted a single evening segment to it. (The data on lack of coverage is based on a search of the Lexis-Nexis database since October 1, 2011. The Nexis database does not include comprehensive daytime coverage, and also does not include Shep Smith's 7pm nightly Fox News program, so both are excluded from the study.) [...]
The legislation also has powerful supporters. As Carr laid out in his article, "Virtually every traditional media company in the United States loudly and enthusiastically supports SOPA." This includes the parent companies of the TV news outlets now ignoring the fury over the bill during their primetime broadcasts, as well as two of the channels themselves.
ABC and CBS are listed as supporters of the bill on the House Judiciary Committee website, along with Comcast/NBCUniversal (which owns MSNBC and NBC News), Viacom (CBS), News Corporation (Fox News), and Time Warner (CNN). Disney Publishing Worldwide, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Corporation, which owns ABC, is also listed as a supporter, as are other Disney properties such as ESPN and Hyperion publishing.
To their credit, the online arms of most of these news outlets have posted regular articles about the fight over the legislation, but their primetime TV broadcasts remain mostly silent. Read on...
Good for Current TV for not ignoring the story as well. Here's more on the action being considered to protest the legislation -- Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter considering “nuclear option” to protest SOPA.
And in an update, this legislation is so bad, it looks like even Paul Ryan is going to oppose it -- Paul Ryan Drops His Support Of SOPA.
