Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 04:43 pm
Not only has the mainstream media ignored the SOPA legislation that they support, but new study revealed that Tim Tebow has gotten over twenty times more news coverage than SOPA.
A Media Matters review of all the mainstream media newscasts since SOPA was introduced on October 26, 2011-January 12, 2012 found that SOPA has gotten exactly two segments on US television news. The list of stories that the corporate mainstream media determined to be more important than SOPA is a shining example of how news for profit has dumbed down America.
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The British royal family received 47 segments on U.S. television news. Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow was featured in 41 NEWS segments. Casey Anthony got 14 segments for releasing a YouTube video, and Alec Baldwin got 13 segments for getting kicked off an airplane for playing a video game on his phone. Even Kim Kardashian’s divorce got more times the amount of coverage that SOPA did.
Every single corporate media cable news network and broadcast network in the United States has signed on as a supporter of SOPA, so it isn’t a surprise that they would ignore the story. One of the trends in the corporate mainstream media is that if they feel threatened by a story like Occupy Wall Street or the Wisconsin protests they simply deem it non news and ignore it.
The fact that Tim Tebow was given twenty times more news segments than a piece of legislation that would destroy the free marketplace of ideas that is the Internet speaks volumes about our media culture. The fact that the American people are not clamoring for more coverage of real news issues demonstrates how infotainment has been used as a successful sedative to keep the American people comatose and uninformed.
All of the “news” coverage in the mainstream media is more Entertainment Tonight than Walter Cronkite. The corporate media has decided that the American people don’t have interest in knowing what is really going on around them, so they continue to feed us mindless fluff like the British royal family and Tim Tebow.
SOPA is aptly named because this legislation is all about cleaning all freedom and independent discussion off the Internet. The corporate media is dreaming of the day when the Internet looks just like the cable news networks. Their lust for SOPA has nothing to do with the protection of intellectual property. It is all about killing the independence of the Internet, so that they can control it.
Even though the Obama administration has now publicly voiced their opposition to SOPA and PIPA, those who value Internet freedom must remain vigilant. Even if SOPA is defeated, the mainstream media will not give up until the Internet is under their control.
Corporate America is trying to Tebowize (sanitize and corporatize) the Internet, which is why SOPA must be stopped.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
