Over
the past 24 hours, the mass media has devoted tons of paper, billions of bytes
and miles of videotape to commemorating a very small step in the progress
towards emancipation of a minority group representing from 2.5%-10% of the
population. The media has trumpeted the opinions of elected officials,
political and sports pundits, sports stars and the man-and-woman in the street,
virtually all supportive of current professional basketball player Jason
Collins coming out of the closet.
Meanwhile,
the news media has practically ignored yesterday’s Supreme Court decision that
confirmed the right of any state to restrict access to public files, a decision
that takes a fairly significant step backwards when it comes to freedom of
speech, open government and civil rights for everyone. In the decision, the Supreme Court upheld the right of the Commonwealth of Virginia to prohibit nonresidents from applying for state information under its freedom of information law. That
means that Virginia and any other state can deny nonresidents access to public
files.
The
chasmic difference in the amount of coverage of these two legitimate news
stories is truly stunning. My morning search of Google News revealed 85.9
million stories mentioning Jason Collins. A mere 10 mention the Supreme Court case,
McBurney v. Young. That’s ten—five
plus five or five times two—the number of fingers and thumbs on both hands. In
fact, total mentions of the U.S. Supreme Court in Google News for literally
hundreds of different issues and cases comprised a mere 33.6 million stories.
It is
easy to understand why we have placed too much importance on the one act of a
sports figure publicly revealing his sexuality.
It’s a feel good story to most Americans and it confirms the current
mainstream view of the country as open and tolerant. At the same time, the Collins leaves the closet story gives
the intolerant right-wing another wrong around which to rally its dwindling
troops.
It is
also easy to figure out why the Supreme Court decision drew so little coverage.
The many small but significant attacks on civil rights since 9/11 seem to get
short shrift in the mass media all the time, unless the right to bear arms or
publicly proclaim a Christian faith is at issue.
Moreover,
while many news organizations filed briefs in favor of the two separate people
who sued Virginia, the Supreme Court’s decision doesn’t really affect the
mainstream news media. Virginia’s law makes an exception for newspapers and magazines with
readers in Virginia and for TV and radio stations that broadcast there. The big
national media and the networks can still tap Virginia’s shrove of public
information. It’s just the little media and individuals who can’t.
My
conclusion: when it comes to unscrewing the lid off the public information vault
in Virginia, size matters.
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