Posted on 04/12/2013 7:27:36 PM PDT by Morgana
PHILADELPHIA, April 12, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Amidst a pro-life Twitter campaign challenging the media blackout on the grisly trial of late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell, a “pro-choice” reporter has offered a frank apology for neglecting what she’s now calling the “trial of the century.”
“The MSM [mainstream media] has barely covered a story that could plausibly be named ‘The Trial of the Century'. And that demands explanation. So I'll tell you why I haven't covered it,” writes Megan McArdle at the Daily Beast. Seats reserved for the press at Gosnell's trial
“To start, it makes me ill. I haven't been able to bring myself to read the grand jury inquiry. I am someone who cringes when I hear a description of a sprained ankle,” McArdle continues. “But I understand why my readers suspect me, and other pro-choice mainstream journalists, of being selective--of not wanting to cover the story because it showcased the ugliest possibilities of abortion rights. The truth is that most of us tend to be less interested in sick-making stories--if the sick-making was done by ‘our side.’ “
McArdle claims that Gosnell’s actions were not caused by legal abortion but admits that legal abortion created the condition for it to take place. “Gosnell was able to harm so many women and babies because he operated in the open,” she writes.
She also highlights the “disturbing implications” Gosnell’s case has for late-term abortions. “It suggests that sometimes, those fetuses are delivered alive,” she writes. “Worse, it hints at what we might be doing inside the womb to ensure that the other ones aren't.”
McArdle discusses a reply from Washington Post reporter Sarah Kliff when she was questioned for not covering the trial by Mollie Hemingway of the GetReligion blog. On Twitter, Kliff said: “I cover policy for the Washington Post, not local crime.”
“I could also offer Kliff's defense, that this is a local crime,” writes McArdle. “But George Tiller's murder was also a local crime. There was no ‘national policy issue’ involved: murder is a matter for state law…Nonetheless, lots of national journalists -- including Sarah Kliff, for Newsweek -- covered the killing and discussed what it meant for abortion provision nationwide.”
She makes clear that she grapsed the implications of her argument, saying the Gosnell trial impacts abortion policy nationwide.
She asks if there are holes in the regulations governing abortion facilities. “More to the point, are those holes created, in part, by the pressure to go easy on abortion clinics, or more charitably, the fear of getting tangled in a hot-button political issue?" she asks.
“This story should have been covered much more than it was -- covered as a national policy issue, not a ‘local crime story’. The press has literally been AWOL,” she writes. “What happened in Philadelphia should never happen again, and all of us -- not just the Philadelphia police -- should be asking how we make sure it doesn't.”
“She also highlights the “disturbing implications” Gosnell’s case has for late-term abortions. “It suggests that sometimes, those fetuses are delivered alive,” she writes. “
It also really bring home the point, why is ok to do 5 minutes before the trip down the birth canal, but not 5 minutes after?
During that time, I was in Los Angeles, reading the LA Time. Just about every day, they would print 1 paragraph about the protests, noting that something like 168 people were arrested - THAT DAY ALONE. Nothing on radio, nothing on television. I was freaking out because I know that if 3 people are arrested in an anti-war rally, it makes headlines around the country. I was watching a COORDINATED media blackout at work, and I’ll never forget it.
What they are doing here is NOTHING NEW.
How could journalists possibly conspire to black out a story? </sarcasm>People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (Book I, Ch 10)What is the Associated Press newswire? It is a virtual meeting of all major news organizations, which has been in continuous operation since before the Civil War. By now, journalism is nothing but "a conspiracy against the public” to promote complainers (such as journalists) and denigrate people who work to a bottom line and actually do things.
It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.The rationale for letting the AP get away with Antitrust violation is that the mission of the AP - conserving bandwidth in the transmission of news nationwide - has made it “too big to fail.” That theory is an anachronism in the era of dirt cheap bandwidth. The AP should be sued into oblivion.
Over 10,000 people in San Francisco for the Walk for Life every January. I’ve seen them myself.
Coordinated news blackout.
They come spilling over the hill, 50 people across, for over an hour. I have never in my life seen so many people at one time in one place.
‘Occupy’ got daily, moment by moment coverage for months. 20 people here, 100 people there.
The Trayvon-Zimmerman story was local: a shooting in a faraway town that no one had ever heard of. Chicago alone has a more than a dozen such shootings on an average weekend. The American media are not about news but about agendas. They are toxic. Thank God we no longer need them.
Journalism students obviously don't study logic in school.
I think Donna Brazile is intellectually honest, but primarily exposed only to the GOPe/RINO political class.
Why are we still talking about this when there are men putting t-shirts on unwilling deer?
Seriously, I feel like I am in bizarro world.
I think the information from the trial is very important and needs to be shown, told, explained to everyone possible.
Me, a former tough guy, is sick to my stomach when I read about this monster murderer and the fact that he is probably not the execption.
I would love to hear a reporter ask that SOB Howard Dean if he did anything like this during his tenure as an abortionist.
Appalling!
Gosnell is BLACK and so are most of the women who were out to KILL THEIR CHILDREN....nothing to see here.
Margaret Sanger would be so proud - poor black people being killed, encouraged and supported by white liberals, and the media treating it as a non-event.
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