Eric Boehlert calls out media for failing to cover SOPA
Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert appeared Monday on The Young Turks to discuss the fact that the highly controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was absent from mainstream television news coverage.
Major media outlets, including ABC, CBS, Comcast/NBC, Viacom, News Corporation and Time Warner, support the legislation. It would allow authorities to block websites accused of copyright infringement.
“There’s a clear conflict of interest,” Boehlert pointed out. “And that’s fine, news companies often have to deal with these conflicts of interest.”
“They’re part of a larger corporate entity and their is going to be these conflicts. So if you have a conflict you think you’d go out of your way to tell everyone about the conflict and to report on it.”
“In this case, unfortunately what we’ve seen is basically that there has been no coverage,” he said, adding that the only coverage has appeared online.