Who is (and isn't) covering SOPA, PIPA and the Jan. 18 blackout?

By Josh Sternberg 
current.com contributor 

UPDATE, 11:15 p.m. ET:  There’s a little less than an hour to go until the sites protesting SOPA and PIPA come back to us here’s what’s happened since our last update.

A whole bunch of senators and representatives changed their positions and came out opposing the current iteration of the SOPA and PIPA legislation. The Daily Beast reports:

Senators Roy Blunt (R-MO), Mark Rubio (R-FL), and Jerry Moran (R-KS), also cosponsors of PIPA, posted their withdrawals to either Facebook or Twitter today as well. Additionally Senators Jeff Markey (D-OR) and Allen West (R-FL) condemned the bill on Twitter. Not to be outdone, Representatives Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Mike Honda (D-CA) blacked out their websites in support.

Buzzfeed culled together “the 50 best statements by members of Congress against SOPA/PIPA.”

While the story did have play today on the cable news networks (CNN has a whole bunch of segments up on its website), each major network devoted at least 30 seconds to it. Actually, 32 seconds. CBS spent 32 seconds on its evening broadcast (CBS doesn’t post segments online, but this segment runs at 9:41 until 10:13 -- you’re welcome), with anchor Scott Pelley succinctly explaining the two sides: how studios believe SOPA prevents piracy of movies and music and how Internet companies say SOPA limits free speech. Interestingly, he added that CBS News’s parent company, CBS Corporation, is a part of a coalition supporting the bill. The other two network anchors spent more time on the piece, however, ABC News, which is owned by Disney, did not mention its parent company. NBC News, owned by Comcast and General Electric, 51 percent and 49 percent respectively, briefly mentioned it.

ABC World News with Diane Sawyer’s piece is a minute and forty-three seconds, also gives the two-side story a look, but then brings in a whiz-kid to explain how someone can get illegal content if they really wanted. Yes, they really got a 15-year-old to find Mission Impossible (in movie theaters now!) and of course he does. End: “Finding a way to stop that (getting illegal content) will please everyone? May well be mission impossible.”

NBC News with Brian Williams talks about old versus new media and adroitly mentions the company he works for (though not actually naming the company) is one of the old media folk. The piece gives ample time to both arguments and spends two minutes and twenty three minutes on the story, talking to not only proponents of both sides, but also explains the effect of the blackout on Congress from one of its reporters.

So after a day of what opponents of SOPA can justifiably call a victory, it’s clear that the message worked. Well, it worked to the audience that gets its news from the Internet – which is a lot of people. However, those who look to mainstream television for in-depth reporting on critical issues that don't align with their parent companies' agendas were left as in the dark as many websites on Wednesday. But the most important audience it worked for appears to have been the one that ultimately decides the legislation’s fate: our leaders in Washington. 

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UPDATE, 3 p.m. ET: We’re 15 hours into the Internet blackout and some interesting developments have occurred. 

First, on the political front, several Republican Representatives and Senators have withdrawn their approval of SOPA/PIPA, including one of the PIPA sponsors, Marco Rubio. From Talking Points Memo:

“I’m going to vote NO on #PIPA and #SOPA. The Internet is too important to our economy,” Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) tweeted on Tuesday afternoon, on the eve of a massive blackout planned by many popular U.S. websites opposed to the bills.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) detailed exactly why he was switching sides from a co-sponsor of PIPA to a detractor in a longer post on Facebook titled “A Better Way to Fight the Online Theft of American Ideas and Jobs.”

Politico reports that not only has Sen. Jim DeMint change his tune, so have a couple of Congressmen:

In the House, Rep. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.), originally a co-sponsor of the Stop Online Piracy Act, pulled his name from the list of sponsors on Tuesday. A spokesman for Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.), meanwhile, told the Omaha World-Herald on Wednesday that the congressman is also unable to support SOPA as written.

So it would seem that the massive protest is working the way the Internet has hoped. But, of course, the opposition to the opposition of SOPA/PIPA (or, less confusingly, those who support it) have also circled their wagons.

The Hill reports:

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), sponsor of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), called Wikipedia's plan to temporarily shut down on Wednesday to protest his bill a "publicity stunt."

Echoing the ‘publicity stunt’ language, the Motion Picture Association of America’s (MPAA) CEO, Chris Dodd (who used to be a U.S. Senator) released a pointed attack on the Internet blackout, saying: It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services. It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today. It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.

A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals. 

The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote today they endorse SOPA. Not surprising, Fox News’ coverage is also SOPA-favorable. The common thread to keep in mind is that both outlets are owned by News Corp, Intl, which is headed by real-life C. Montgomery Burns, Rupert Murdoch.

In social media news, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote a post on his wall supporting the SOPA protests. From The Next Web:

“The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can’t let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet’s development. Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet.”

From the Cable News world. The Hollywood Reporter put out a piece analyzing the cable news nets’ coverage today, and from my own viewing experience (45 minutes of CNN at the gym and 1 hour at home watching MSNBC) there have been no mentions of SOPA protests. We’ll see what the evening news on the major networks do.

Back to that Fox News coverage, here's a look, courtesy of Media Matters, at how the SOPA/PIPA conversation was framed there this morning:

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ORIGINAL POST: We love countdowns, don’t we? Whether it’s counting down to midnight on New Year’s Eve or when launching our science projects into the atmosphere, for some reason, we have a deep love of counting backwards. If you’ve been around the Internet or have watched TV news the past couple of days, you would have noticed people counting down to January 18th: the day the Internet goes dark in protest of the (for the moment shelved) House bill called Stop Online Piracy Act (or SOPA) and its Senate counterpart, Protect IP Act (or PIPA). 

At midnight ET, many websites are shutting down for the day, protesting what they believe is a bill that threatens free speech and innovation. The bill, from supporters – like media and entertainment companies – is meant to curb online piracy.

SOPA and PIPA are backed by a wide range of copyright owners, including the six Hollywood film studios and the four major record companies. The bills would hand the U.S. Justice Department the ability to cut off access in the United States to Web sites based overseas accused of trading in pirated or counterfeit materials. It would also give the government the power to force credit card companies, online advertisers, and Internet service providers to cut off ties with accused pirates.

Not surprisingly, this news was met with consternation from the Internet/tech world from Day 1 (Oct. 26, 2011) and nary a peep from the TV news world until last week when Reddit became the first site to announce its protest-by-going-dark campaign. MediaMatters conducted a study of the major network news programs and found that during the time period Oct. 26, 2011 to Jan. 12, 2012, there were a total of two mentions of the controversial bill in the evening hours. 

Talking Points Memo has a great graph showing not only which companies are supporting the blackout, but also the day they announced their intentions.

CNet rounds up its coverage, starting as early as Oct. 27, 2011. And, since we just can’t help ourselves, here’s a look at Current’s coverage since we noted SOPA and PIPA as our “Underreported Story” back in November.

Here is a link to all the Congressmen/women and Senators who support or oppose these bills. You’ll find some interesting names you might not expect in the S or O columns.

However, over the weekend, The New York Times reported that the Obama Administration says “no to SOPA – as it’s written,” giving a big boon to the tech world.

The Obama administration said Saturday that it strongly opposed central elements of two Congressional efforts to enforce copyrights on the Internet, all but killing the current versions of legislation that has divided both political parties and pitted Hollywood against Silicon Valley.

And while Reddit, the enormously popular and influential social bookmarking site, and Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, are shutting their services down for the day, tech titan Google is protesting by putting a link on the top of the page directing users how to contact their elected officials to explain why they should be against it. 

From CNet: 

Google, the Web's top search company and one of technology's most influential powers in Washington, will post a link on its home page tomorrow to notify users of Google's opposition to controversial antipiracy bills being debated in Congress.

From ABC News:

Wikipedia's founder, Jimmy Wales, says his site will go dark for the day on Wednesday, joining a budding movement to protest the two bills.

"This is going to be wow," Wales said on Twitter. "I hope Wikipedia will melt phone systems in Washington on Wednesday. Tell everyone you know!"

From the L.A. Times:

Reddit was one of the trailblazers of the blackout movement, declaring its intent to go dark on Jan. 10. Two days later, Ben Huh, chief executive of Cheezburger, which has a network of 50 sites including the seminal ICanHasCheezburger as well as Fail Blog, Know Your Meme and the Daily What, said his sites would be joining the strike.

And Scribd, which claims to be the world's largest online repository of documents, said visitors to its website would find a pop-up roadblock Wednesday in protest of SOPA and PIPA that will lead to a call to action and an online petition. 

Interestingly, Twitter CEO Dick Costelo said that blackout out the ubiquitous social network would be foolish.

From The Guardian:

In a tweet, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo called Wikipedia's plans to pull the plug on its website "foolish" and "silly."

Via Twitter, Radar correspondent Alex Howard asked Costolo, Google's Eric Schmidt and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, whether they would have the “cojones” to follow in Wikipedia's protesting footsteps. "That's just silly. Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish," Costolo replied.

The Wall Street Journal gives some helpful hints on ways around the Wikipedia blackout:

The mobile version of Wikipedia, which draws millions of page requests a day, will remain up and running, says Jay Walsh, a spokesman for the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia.

Cached versions of Wikipedia web pages, or stored versions of the site, also are likely to be available, he said, depending on the operations of the other Web companies that archive the site.

This “fight” has so far been pretty much online, and in the last week, over the air waves on some cable news networks. But with Wednesday’s impending doom, er, blackout to some of the Web’s most trafficked sites, we’ll know if these protests achieve any effect. 

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