Well, thanks to enough people on social media who still have any sense at all about good and evil, Kermit Gosnell might actually make the real news tonight.
Don’t know who he is? Can’t blame you. Many powerful people have worked very hard to cultivate your ignorance. He is currently on trial for systematic, sustained atrocity committed at his abortion clinic. Mr. Steyn wrote about it (warning: disturbing) more than two years ago.
I do not mention it to complain about a knee-jerk template leftist reaction, which has generally been reading the details of this case and saying “well, that’s ridiculous. This monster was breaking the law. No one would support what he did.” (Follow that up with horribly dishonest and fallacious “arguments” purporting to blame pro-lifers for a climate that allows Gosnell to exist.)
It’s about asking troubling questions about a culture—is it too much to call it a culture of death? it is not—that minimizes a story like this. Read this current piece from The Atlantic (warning: it is quite disturbing).
Tell me how there is any space for Lindsay Lohan in any legitimate news outlet when this goes unmentioned. Tell me everything you know about Sandra Fluke, and compare it a list of what you knew about Gosnell before you read that Atlantic piece. Tell me how it comes to pass that Wikipedia is on the verge of deleting the entire entry because it’s just a “local” story.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are very basic concepts of right and wrong that should be uncontroversial and universal in a civilized society, or it is nothing of the sort.
That is what makes the mass media blackout of the Kermit Gosnell case morally reprehensible.
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I’ve got to disagree with you on this one… I first heard about this sicko a few years ago on NPR. Unfortunately, currently both sides of the political spectrum have decided to politicize it. Until folks broaden their news sources to include unbiased media of some sort (alongside their biased media – gotta get a fix!) this sort of “media uproar” will always happen. And that means branching out and paying for your sources… subscribe to Time, Newsweek, Washington Post, or NY Times. You get what you pay for, and there’s value in truth.
My favorite article about the “recent discovery” of this story:
“By all means, be up in arms about Kermit Gosnell. But blame existing policies and public indifference to low-income communities.” Salon: http://tinyurl.com/c3b9es2
Stephenie, I think I understand where you’re coming from. But Gosnell’s on trial right now. Compare the level of coverage in the mainstream media for this trial vs., say, O.J. Simpson’s murder trial, or Scott Peterson’s.
Also, I don’t believe in an unbiased presentation of anything. This is an excellent example of bias by omission. Someone who relies on a single network telecast (for example) for news would have no idea this was going on.
Time – one article on March 18 calling the trial a lynching.
Newsweek – link to Philly Daily News March 19, repeats lynching accusation, nothing else until yesterday, which is when Kirsten Powers published her powerful essay in USA Today.
Washington Post – finally shamed into the following statement “We believe the story is deserving of coverage by our own staff, and we intend to send a reporter for the resumption of the trial next week. In retrospect, we should have sent a reporter sooner.”
New York Times – article on March 18. Prosecution called “racist, elitist.”
Wow, Stephanie, that’s certainly balanced, in-depth coverage. /sarc
To quote one of the better tweets I saw today, Mitt Romney with scissors in 1965 – 20 pages of coverage. Kermit Gosnell with scissors – crickets.
The mass man wants bubble gum and soap opera—just challenging enough so he believes he is thinking critically. The media are vehicles for selling advertising: interesting enough to get you to sit through the next commercial break. This real-life horror story does not fit either way. We do not want to believe that this could possibly be real. It is so disturbing that people change the channel or click away and thus bye-bye ad dollars. The mainstream media are supplying their audiences with exactly what they demand.
Existing policies are the problem, namely those policies that reward and encourage high time-preference. The inevitable result is a permanent dependent underclass, which is also so disturbing as to be muted out thanks to the same cognitive bias.
I thought the Casey Anthony story was pretty horrifying, yet the coverage was relentless, to the point I stopped watching the news while it was going on.
Another point I wanted to make is, lest you think that only happens in one clinic in Philadelphia, there have been other reported problems with abortion clinics, including the one in Birmingham. Last year, two injured women had to be carried out by EMTs because they couldn’t get the gurney inside. Recently, a woman in Maryland died after a botched abortion, and in Delaware, a Planned Parenthood clinic was shut down after “unsafe and unsanitary conditions”.
Greg, “just challenging enough so he believes he is thinking critically” is a frightening and accurate phrase.
Greg said it much better than I in his comment above. In no way do I think any one media outlet is fair and balanced 100% of the time. I do think that most people just eat what they are fed and hardly ever seek out a variety of sources to compare and contrast what they are served. My comment was more about the consumption of media and less about the political aspects of the Gosnell story itself.
I’m glad more media outlets are covering the story, but I still don’t think there was any sort of organized cover-up. Another great article about it I just read today that contributes to the discussion:
“14 theories Why Kermit Gosnell’s Case Didn’t Get More Media Attention”
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/04/14-theories-for-why-kermit-gosnells-case-didnt-get-more-media-attention/274966/