-By Warner Todd Huston
Abortionist Kermit Gosnell has been on trial in Pennsylvania for seven weeks accused of murdering patients and killing babies born alive in a filthy clinic staffed by untrained, unlicensed assistants, but the trial has barely made a blip on big three network news programs.
The trial has been shocking, to say the least, but the networks have still ignored it. But the networks are obviously not trying to shield viewers from shocking trials. A recent review of network programming by the Media Research Center reveals that not all shocking trials are equal in the network’s eyes as they’ve covered dozens of them over the last 42 days.
MRC has found that hundreds of minutes of airtime have been dedicated to the Amanda Knox trial in Spain and the Arizona-based trial of Jodi Arias who is accused of the brutal murder of her boy friend Travis Alexander.
While practically ignoring the Gosnell trial, MRC found that ABC’s Good Morning America has visited the Arias trail 22 times in the last seven weeks alone. Along with the Arias trial, GMA has hit several other sensational trials amounting to 41 separate stories since the Gosnell trial started.
GMA also hit the Amanda Knox trial nine times even as it constantly passed over the Gosnell trial.
MRC points out that all three networks have been asked why they are ignoring the Gosnell trial. Both NBC and CBS offered weak excuses for their lapse saying they’d cover it soon, but ABC even ignored the question. As MRC points out, the Washington Post received a curt reply to its query from ABC: “An ABC News representative, Julie Townsend, declined comment.”
MRC accuses the media of being so enslaved to supporting abortion that they have refused to cover the Gosnell trial and scolds the media for its recalcitrance.
The horrifying details of the Jodi Arias case, the Amanda Knox murder trial and rest are tragic stories with real victims. Their importance should not be downplayed or dismissed as purely sensational. But the lives of innocent babies, allegedly murdered in appalling circumstances, are also significant. Is it too much to ask that ABC’s hosts and producers cover a story, even if it doesn’t match the political agenda of pro-abortion liberals?
How long will the networks ignore this story?
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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