After coming under sustained, concerted attack from conservative and pro-life forces over the past few weeks, the so-called mainstream media have grudgingly half-covered the sensational multiple-murder trial of the notorious Philadelphia abortionist, Kermit Gosnell. Many MSM writers, editors, and commentators are conjuring up ridiculous explanations to justify being AWOL on this important story, but a few liberal-left journalists have admitted that this is a case where their fellow “progressives” in the media have allowed their overwhelming “pro-choice” bias to run rampant, to the point of engaging in willful, blatant censorship.
Kermit Gosnell has killed many more children than Adam Lanza, the accused gunman in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. “Doctor” Gosnell cold-bloodedly murdered hundreds of children in especially gruesome ways — and even joked about it. His total death toll over the past four decades includes thousands of babies, most of whom were black, Hispanic, or Asian. Just about everyone has heard of Adam Lanza, although very little factual data is actually known about the troubled youth. Dr. Gosnell, on the other hand, carried out his decades-long murder spree under the protection of pro-abortion politicians and media organizations that were intentionally blind to his activities — until his crimes became so obvious and publicly offensive that they were forced to disassociate themselves from him by portraying his as an outlier who is unrepresentative of the abortion industry.
On March 18 the Philadelphia abortionist went on trial for the murder of seven babies who were born alive, but whom he then killed by “snipping” their spines. He was also charged in the death of one of the mothers on whom he had performed an abortion.
Gosnell — Given Immunity to Act With Impunity
The county grand jury report on Gosnell’s “House of Horrors” and the testimony heard at trial show a butcher who was able to act with impunity decade after decade while carrying out unspeakable crimes. Why was Gosnell able to get away with his abominable activity for so long? He was able to act with impunity because he was given immunity by his pro-abortion allies in the media and in government, the very people charged with protecting the public from monsters such as Gosnell. And this de facto immunity has been reinforced by the almost complete MSM blackout — until recently — of the Gosnell trial.
Professor Admits: “Those of us on the Left have made a decision not to cover this trial”
While most of the MSM commentariat — almost universally pro-abortion — continue to insist that there is, and has been, no conscious effort by the media to censor this story, a few have been more candid. Professor Marc Lamont Hill of Columbia University is one who has admitted what millions of Americans already knew to be the case.
“For what it’s worth, I do think that those of us on the Left have made a decision not to cover this trial because we worry that it’ll compromise abortion rights,” Professor Hill said. “Whether you agree with abortion or not, I do think there’s a direct connection between the media’s failure to cover this and our own political commitments on the Left.”
“I think it’s a bad idea,” Hill said of the blackout. “I think it’s dangerous, but I think that’s the way it is.”
Professor Hill is not just your run-of-the-mill “liberal”; he’s a hardcore radical Marxist who has treated recent murderer/cop-killer Christopher Dorner as a folk hero, as well as defending Maoist-communist Van Jones and Weather Underground terrorist/cop-killer Assata Shakur (aka Joanne Chesimard).
Another welcome admission came from Melinda Henneberger of the Washington Post, one of the establishment media organs most culpable for spiking the Gosnell story. In an April 15 column entitled “Why Kermit Gosnell hasn’t been on Page One,” Henneberger made this extraordinary confession:
I say we didn’t write more because the only abortion story most outlets ever cover in the news pages is every single threat or perceived threat to abortion rights. In fact, that is so fixed a view of what constitutes coverage of that issue that it’s genuinely hard, I think, for many journalists to see a story outside that paradigm as news. That’s not so much a conscious decision as a reflex, but the effect is one-sided coverage.
Yes, no conscious conspiracy here, just an overwhelming ideological reflex that manifests itself in a lockstep conformity that tolerates no conflicting narratives, opinions, or inconvenient facts.
To her credit, Henneberger is uncomfortable with this reflexive conformity and takes her colleagues to task for covering up for the egregious Gosnell.
Covering Everything Except Gosnell’s House of Horrors
Simple question: Which is the more important story, the Gosnell “House of Horrors” mass-murder trial or the firing of Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice for making “homophobic” slurs? Obviously, in our politically correct culture — as dictated by the PC media police — the latter is far more important, as this story from Newsbusters powerfully reveals.
Newsbusters’ Matthew Philbin wrote on April 9:
The Rutgers basketball story continues to transfix the media, and why shouldn’t it? Mike Rice, the disgraced former Rutgers basketball coach allegedly killed a woman and at least seven viable, born-alive babies “by plunging scissors into their spinal cords” in his filthy, macabre “house of horrors” abortion clinic.
Oh wait, my mistake. Rice was fired last week from Rutgers over video of him shoving, kicking and yelling at his players, throwing basketballs at them and — most damning — using “homophobic slurs.” That’s made Rice the most notorious villain in America. And in one week it earned him 36 network news stories clocking in at 41 minutes, 26 seconds of air time on ABC, CBS and NBC.
Now, had Rice been accused of killing a woman and eight babies, he’d be enjoying the same anonymity as Kermit Gosnell — provided the killings were carried out in an abortion clinic. Gosnell is the West Philadelphia abortionist who ran an unimaginable charnel house of a “clinic,” for 30 years. Witnesses testified that he may have murdered over 100 babies outside the womb. Gosnell’s trial, underway for weeks, has featured wrenching testimony and horrific details. And it has received exactly zero seconds of airtime on the broadcast networks.
Here’s the news story scorecard:
• Coach Rice’s terrible “crime” of a momentary slip of the tongue and some over-the-top, unsportsmanlike, unprofessional behavior — 36 network news stories;
• Gosnell’s gruesome abattoir of death — zero, zip, nada.
Newsflash: This is called a blackout. Or, in traditional newspaper parlance, we would say the story was spiked — big time. And Henneberger’s reflexive explanation notwithstanding, a blackout or spiking this universal bespeaks conscious, deliberate choice. Surely, at least some cub reporter somewhere, remembering the basics from Journalism 101, must have asked some newsroom editor: “Gee, this Gosnell trial looks interesting; do you want me to cover it?” If so, that editor must have quickly enlightened the neophyte on newsroom priorities (not to mention PC etiquette) and redirected the cub to the real news we can’t do without: Coach Rice’s rant, the latest celebrity wardrobe malfunction, anything Kardashian, or the umpteen thousandth story on why the Newtown shooting means the NRA is evil and we need more gun control laws.
That Newsbuster Gosnell/Rice scorecard report was on April 9, but the picture hasn’t gotten much better since then. Although many MSM organizations have been shamed into offering some coverage of the Gosnell case, they invariably have tried to “balance” their coverage by inviting spokesmen from Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and other pro-abortion organizations to spin the story to fit a “pro-choice” narrative.
As Newsbusters reported on April 24 (“MSNBC Finally Covers Gosnell Trial in Primetime Five Weeks After it Began”) MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, even while admitting the horrific nature of Gosnell’s crimes, tried to turn the story into a pro-abortion apologia. “Everybody in our office, all producers, mostly women, are appalled at this,” Matthews said. “They can`t even read these articles. It’s so tough. I had a hard time reading them. It’s beyond belief that there was something going on like this, without getting into the testimony questions. If it’s even like this at all, it’s horrible.”
Yes, horrible, but even more so because the media organizations that should have been exposing the horrors were actually covering it up and ignoring or belittling the evidence that pro-life advocates had been presenting for years about the goings-on at Gosnell’s slaughterhouse.
Nevertheless, as to be expected, many on the Left completely reject any accusation or suggestion that there has been any effort to stifle coverage of the Gosnell story. Rawstory.com ran this article by Jill Filipovic of the Guardian claiming that the fuss about the MSM’s lack of coverage is a complete fiction made up by a national conspiracy of pro-life zealots.
And MediaMatters.org, the far-Left propaganda font for everything “progressive,” claims that the Gosnell case is actually an indictment of the pro-life movement, because restrictions on abortion have “forced” women to seek out the services of monsters such as Gosnell.
For additional information and perspective on the MSM’s shutout of the Gosnell story, we suggest these posts by James Velasquez at Policymic.com, Michelle Malkin, and John Nolte at Breitbart.com.
Here are some of the stories from The New American covering the Gosnell case:
Murder Trial Begins for “House of Horrors” Abortionist
“House of Horrors” Abortion Assistant Recalls Executions of Scores of Newborn Babies
Monstrous Abortion Doctor Charged
Abortion Mills Kept Dead Babies in Jars — Like Serial-killer Trophies
Dr. Gosnell and Legal Back-alley Abortions
Planned Parenthood Rep Gives Chilling Testimony on “Post-Birth” Abortion
