Lord Byron, the immortal Romantic and club-footed poet, once stated, “In England the only homage which they pay to Virtue — is hypocrisy.” We might retrofit that observation to frame the current narrative of mainstream media in America to read, “In America, the only homage which media pays to Truth — is hypocrisy.”
That narrative truly befits NBC, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and most especially Fox, as regards their support of Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
How does an industry that thrives on free speech (ostensibly), and would not exist but for laws against censorship, at once support SOPA but not extensively and thoroughly report on the same? Vast, institutional hypocrisy. Or perhaps the networks require flashier stories for advertising purposes, such as Herman Cain’s past dalliances or Newt Gingrich’s pontifications on how inner city plight might be alleviated.
In a report by Media Matters, based on a Lexis-Nexis search from October 21, 2011 to the present—which, of course, it the time frame during which SOPA came under heavy criticism on its way through Congress—”most major television news outlets — MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, CBS, and NBC — have ignored the bill during their evening broadcasts.” That is, during prime time. Only CNN aired a segment on SOPA during a broadcast of The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer in December, although CNN did not disclose parent company Time-Warner’s support of the legislation.
Media Matters’ research excludes Shep Smith’s 7pm nightly Fox News program (not included in the Lexis-Nexis database), as well as day-time coverage. Even if the report had included the latter, running SOPA news during daytime hours would be rather convenient given the fact that most American adults (those who would benefit most from understanding SOPA anyway) would be in an office cubicle or operating heavy machinery, amongst other things.
Ben Dimiero, who wrote the report, does credit the major networks for coverage on their websites, but that hardly has the reach of prime time broadcasting. The major news networks could remedy this by simply replacing some of their election coverage and other news programs with some detailed reporting and commentary on SOPA.
Democracy demands it.
