Ah, the poor mainstream media… it seems that whenever a mainstream media outlet hears the words “child” and “porn” in the same paragraph, reporters and their editors have a hard time focusing on any of the surrounding verbiage, and immediately conclude that there’s another salacious child pornography story waiting to be broken wide open.Sometimes, it seems, the word “child” isn’t even necessary in the equation – any discussion of “porn on the internet” suddenly, and inexplicably, transforms into a discussion of pedophiles, their perfidious and pernicious presence online, and implications (never, ever, supported by fact) that there is some connection between the adult industry, child pornography and sexual predation.

Take last week, for example. A wide range of publications and online news outlets got a hold of the story about the US Department of Justice issuing subpoenas to the likes of Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc., wanting to look over their search records, looking for data to use as fodder for support of the Child Online Protection Act (COPA).

While it remains arguable as to whether the data collected would help their case in any way, one thing is completely inarguable – this was data the DOJ desires in order to use in support of COPA, an effort to keep kids from viewing porn online. Yes, a story involving both children and pornography, but clearly not a story about child pornography, and/or keeping kids from participating in porn online.

Um… did I say that it was “clear”? Let me rephrase; it should have been clear, and perhaps it even would have been clear to the American public, except for the fact that the mainstream press got a hold of it, and – SURPISE! – it became a story about child porn.

Here are just a few select examples to illustrate my point (there are literally dozens of other sites and papers where these mistakes were replicated), with emphasis added, and with many thanks to Phillip Lensen, who documented numerous examples in his blog:

“The company has refused to turn over the data, which the Bush Administration claims it will use in its fight against child pornography.” – A choice snippet of “not quite right” news from Forbes.

“The US Department of Justice wants the information to help it to establish how much child pornography is available on the internet.” – A dubious conclusion from the Times Online.

“The Justice Department is asking Internet search giant Google to turn over search records in an effort to defend a child pornography law.” – This gem of inaccuracy courtesy CNN.

“However, the Supreme Court invited the government to either come up with a less drastic version of the law or go to trial to prove that the statute does not violate the First Amendment and is the only viable way to combat child porn.” – Not to be left out, the Mercury News came up with this shining pile of untruth.

“The Supreme Court invited the government to either come up with a less drastic version of the law or go to trial to prove that the statute does not violate the First Amendment and is the only viable way to combat child porn.” – Slashdot actually cited the Mercury News on this one, rather than put in a few minutes behind a keyboard themselves to verify anything.

For shame, Forbes. Try again, CNN. And Slashdot – even beloved-by-geeks-everywhere Slashdot – say it isn’t so!

The data the government seeks is being collected in furtherance of COPA, and not 2257 regulations, or anything else related to child pornography. How in God’s name, though, given how badly mainstream news sources screwed the pooch on this one, could any member of the American public be expected to discern that fact?

Everybody knows that if you just scan the headlines of an average daily paper (and I honestly believe that is precisely how most Americans go about “reading” the newspaper these days), you don’t get the whole story. In this instance, though, you could read the entire article and not only would you still not have a clue as to what was actually going on, you would have been entirely mislead concerning the basic and essential facts of the story!

Maybe the answer, rather than to just complain about how lousy the mainstream press has become, is give these guys a piece of our mind – and a helping hand, while we’re at it.

Hit up your favorite mainstream news source, via email, phone, snail mail, hell maybe using smoke signals or sheep entrails – whatever works for a group of people apparently unfamiliar with how to use the Net or other research materials in order to verify information they have been supplied with – and let them know that the next time they’re working on a story related to the porn industry, it might not be such a bad idea to contact someone in the business to get their read on the situation.

Who knows – with enough help, they might actually get the story right next time.