Nov 24, 2003 / 22:00 pm
CBS TV's 60 Minutes, like most of the U.S. secular media, seems to have placed “its money and hopes on the hardcore pornographers.” That’s what Robert Peters, president of the watchdog organization Morality in Media, said in a press release following a segment on the documentary news program on the hardcore pornography industry, which aired Nov. 23.
The segment, entitled “Porn in the U.S.A.”, “provided those who defend the hardcore pornography industry with yet another largely unchallenged opportunity to tell America how profitable, 'mainstream' and 'acceptable' their business has become, and how difficult if not impossible it now is to enforce obscenity laws based on 'community standards,'” said Peters.
In the first half of the segment, 60 Minutes presented the hardcore porn industry and a sympathetic author, who wrote a book about the increase in obscenity, with no one offering a counter argument or opinion. Most of the second segment was also largely devoted to those who promote or defend the industry, said the press release.
The program also emphasized how mainstream corporations like Cablevision, Time Warner, DirecTV, Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott and Sheraton now profit from the distribution of hardcore pornography, “as if this makes it acceptable,” said Peters.