News Networks Ignore Controversial SOPA Legislation

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has received virtually no coverage from major American television news outlets during their evening newscasts and opinion programming.

The parent companies of most of these networks, as well as two of the networks themselves, are listed as official "supporters" of this legislation on the U.S. House of Representatives' website. To their credit, the online arms of most of these news outlets have posted regular articles about the fight over the legislation, but their primetime TV broadcasts remain mostly silent.

Over the past few months, debate over SOPA and its companion Senate bill, the PROTECT IP Act (also known as PIPA) has boiled over online. Numerous tech writers, experts, and companies have spoken out against the bills, warning that while they ostensibly target online piracy and "rogue" foreign websites hosting pirated copyrighted content, the bills could severely limit internet freedom and innovation.