Newscasts walk a fine line when their parent corporations become players in controversial stories — and network TV coverage of Wednesday's Anti-SOPA, Anti-PIPA protests proved it. Takes a ballsy editor or anchor to stand up to a piracy-battling CEO who's funding "censorship," and triggering protests that have led to a Web blackout. Some networks did better, some worse than others.
A poll on the CBS Evening News web site revealed SOPA/PIPA was the #1 story viewers were interested in, but the network’s signature newscast gave it a mere 32 seconds. A viewer would have concluded that only Google and Wikipedia were protesting, the only sites mentioned in the story by anchor Scott Pelly. At least CBS (which owns Viacom which owns Paramount) disclaimed its involvement in the pro-SOPA/PIPA movement, more than Time Warner’s CNN cared to admit.
CNN, “The most trusted name in news,” seemed to be the most self-censoring name in covering SOPA, relegating the story to a Cafferty File reader — a spoken word piece with no interviews, no graphics, no breaking news of congress members and senators switching sides, or that protesters had crashed congressional web sites with an avalanche of hits. And no mention of parent Time Warner's fingerprints on the bills. The story amounted to Jack Cafferty playing it simply as an opinion poll, a battle between the Internet and “the government.” Huh? Lobby congress ferociously, then blame it for backing your legislation?
Time Warner, a serious combatant in this war, was never mentioned. Neither was its movie studio Warner Bros., Warner's music empire or any other Big Media cartels, the MPAA or RIAA. No mention of Time Warner pumping big bucks into the campaigns of co-sponsoring lawmakers. When a viewer pointed this out in a comment on Cafferty’s blog, the post was quickly deleted. Anderson Cooper 360 ignored the protest entirely.
Fox News Channel also declined to admit its participation in the pro-SOPA juggernaut, but that seemed perfectly okay with reporter Claudia Cowan who launched into an unattributed and unsubstantiated slam against Google (as reported by Media Matters).
“Some call this ironic, since Google’s business is to link users to various sites," reported Cowan, "essentially, critics contend, stealing other people’s content every day.”
Who’s the mysterious “some” in “some call?” To borrow a well-worn Fox-ism, some say it might be News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch who’s branded Google as the “piracy leader” of the Internet. We report. You decide.
To its credit, Fox aired an extended interview with Dave Aitel, CEO of Immunity, Inc, kind of a geeky conversation, but Aitel spoke to Silicon Valley sensibilities and hit the salient points in the most authentic, tech-savvy coverage seen on the tube. But please explain Fox News anchor Martha McCallum’s cryptic closing comment as she wrapped Cowan's piece: “The whole world has changed over the privacy of this content.”
ABC World News, owned by parent corporation and pro-SOPA advocate Disney, didn’t make the full episode of its nightly newscast available for streaming (fearful of it being pirated?) so I'm in the dark about what Diane Sawyer did, or did not say. Only that cruise ship, grounded in Italy, made the newscast's on-demand stream.
Still, a post on ABC News’ blog turned out fairly balanced but only skimmed the shallows in researching the story: “Sites checked by ABC News did not actually 'go dark' as originally threatened. Instead, they posted appeals to users to get in touch with their congressional representatives to argue against passage of the two bills.” Just how many sites did ABC check? The network declined to say.
An ABC News online video, “SOPA and PIPA Blackout Explained” didn't add promised depth. Those turning to it for insight discovered the report missing in action. “Sorry, clip not found.”
Reporter Kevin Tibble’s package on NBC Nightly News was the only report pointing out that some 7,000 sites participated. It included a soundbite from Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales, but completely ignored the collateral damage SOPA might cause to intermediary sites, or the difficulty search engines and listener-fed sites including YouTube and Facebook would face enforcing it.
Tibble spent some time pulling a book from a library shelf, reporting that things had indeed changed since the good old days when print ruled, then uncovered an equally stunning revelation by students: pricey content is the most likely to be pirated. (Oh, those college kids!) Tibble ended with a snarky “gotcha,” a Wikipedia blackout page workaround. Should have seen this coming when Brian Williams arched an eyebrow in his intro to Tibble's piece: “Critics say it’ll lead somehow to censorship.” [My italics.] So much for balance from this show from NBCUniversal, owners of Universal Pictures.
Since neither Newt Gingrich nor Mitt Romney figured into the SOPA story it was completely ignored by MSNBC's Chris Matthews. The real deal happened on MSNBC last Sunday when Up with Chris Hayes broadcast a debate featuring NBCUniversal Executive Vice President and General Counsel Rick Cotton, Reddit.com co-founder Alexis Ohanian, former Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) and former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Not only did an NBCUniversal honcho put his corporate face on the issue, it's the best, most substantive televised dialogue we've seen on the issue since the fracas began.
