Stanek weekend question: How do we handle mea culpas?
UPDATE 4/14, 5:15p: Elizabeth at Patheos has written a great related piece, “Is MSM awareness of Gosnell a wave in tide of God’s mercy?” (HT: Kirsten Powers)
4/13, 11:03: There is a fine line between righteous indignation and gloating.
I would identify the charges levied against the media for ignoring the Kermit Gosnell mass murder trial as righteous indignation.
We pro-lifers engage in this a lot. There is daily evidence that MSM ignores or distorts stories on abortion.
But in the case of Gosnell we are seeing something rare, mea culpas, such as at the Washington Post and The Daily Beast. Some of the blinders are lifting, thanks in large part to Kirsten Powers, who has pointed out the Gosnell case is so obviously over the top.
In the days to come there will likely be plenty of room for righteous indignation regarding the media’s treatment of Gosnell, such as this ridiculous piece.
But I am also now trying to be sensitive to those mea culpas as well as those in the liberal press who are doing a bit of soul searching, such as Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic:
Until Thursday, I wasn’t aware of this story. It has generated sparse coverage in the national media…. I still consume a tremendous amount of journalism. Yet had I been asked at a trivia night about the identity of Kermit Gosnell, I would’ve been stumped and helplessly guessed a green Muppet. Then I saw Kirsten Power’s USA Today column. She makes a powerful, persuasive case that the Gosnell trial ought to be getting a lot more attention in the national press than it is getting….
But I agree that the story has been undercovered….
Inducing live births and subsequently severing the heads of the babies is indeed a horrific story that merits significant attention. Strange as it seems to say it, however, that understates the case.
For this isn’t solely a story about babies having their heads severed, though it is that. It is also a story about a place where, according to the grand jury, women were sent to give birth into toilets; where a doctor casually spread gonorrhea and chlamydiae to unsuspecting women through the reuse of cheap, disposable instruments; an office where a 15-year-old administered anesthesia; an office where former workers admit to playing games when giving patients powerful narcotics; an office where white women were attended to by a doctor and black women were pawned off on clueless untrained staffers. Any single one of those things would itself make for a blockbuster news story. Is it even conceivable that an optometrist who attended to his white patients in a clean office while an intern took care of the black patients in a filthy room wouldn’t make national headlines?
But it isn’t even solely a story of a rogue clinic that’s awful in all sorts of sensational ways either. Multiple local and state agencies are implicated in an oversight failure that is epic in proportions! If I were a city editor for any Philadelphia newspaper the grand jury report would suggest a dozen major investigative projects I could undertake if I had the staff to support them. And I probably wouldn’t have the staff. But there is so much fodder for additional reporting.
There is, finally, the fact that abortion, one of the most hotly contested, polarizing debates in the country, is at the center of this case. It arguably informs the abortion debate in any number of ways, and has numerous plausible implications for abortion policy, including the oversight and regulation of clinics, the appropriateness of late-term abortions, the penalties for failing to report abuses, the statute of limitations for killings like those with which Gosnell is charged, whether staff should be legally culpable for the bad behavior of doctors under whom they work…
There’s just no end to it.
To sum up, this story has numerous elements any one of which would normally make it a major story. And setting aside conventions, which are flawed, this ought to be a big story on the merits.
The news value is undeniable.
And those in the press doing a combination of the two, like David Weigel at Slate:
Let’s just state the obvious: National political reporters are, by and large, socially liberal. We are more likely to know a gay couple than to know someone who owns an “assault weapon.” We are, generally, pro-choice. Twice, in D.C., I’ve caused a friend to literally leave a conversation and freeze me out for a day or so because I suggested that the Stupak Amendment and the Hyde Amendment made sense. There is a bubble. Horror stories of abortionists are less likely to permeate that bubble than, say, a story about a right-wing pundit attacking an abortionist who then claims to have gotten death threats….
If you’re pro-choice, say, and you worry that the Gosnell story is being promoted only to weaken your cause, you really should read that grand jury report. “DOH could and should have closed down Gosnell’s clinic years before,” write the investigators. Why wasn’t it? Were state regulators nervous about igniting a political fight about abortion? Is the regulatory system incompetent or under-funded? And are there other states where the same could be said? Social conservatives are largely right about the Gosnell story. Maybe it’s not a raw political story. It’s just the story of a potential mass murderer who operated for decades as government regulators did nothing.
As a pro-life Christian, I am burdened to pray particularly hard for community wisdom right now. How do we continue to hold feet to the fire yet coax along those whose cold hearts are being pierced by this extreme example of where abortion leads? Because, after all…
He has sent me to announce forgiveness to the prisoners of sin and the restoring of sight to the blind, to forgive those who have been shattered by sin, to announce the year of the Lord’s favor.
Your thoughts? I think the operative word here is “gloating” – to pray against that. Because God hates religious pride as much as secular pride.
I wholeheartedly agree with Jill: There should be NO gloating. We want to welcome others to embrace the truth of the dignity of human life and acknowledge the atrocities of abortion. This could be a watershed moment in the media for the pro-life cause, and we don’t want to ruin it by pulling all sorts of “I told you so’s” out of our bags.
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As a side anecdote, I posted a story about Gosnell on my FB page and the least likely people commented and shared it on their pages. They had no clue this was/had happened. The comments on their shares were along the same line, with many people admitting they could not read the article all the way thru. I think we need to affirm the horror people are feeling, and gracefully help them reach the right conclusion, or wait for it prayerfully to come on their own: abortion is murder and hurts women.
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i hope the outrage from the American people on this entire thing proves to Obama and the pro-abortion pols that Americans truly ARE more pro-life than what they’d like to believe.
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I think it is impossible to gloat over something like this. What is there to gloat about? There is nothing to gloat about.
However, kudos should be given to Ms. Stanek and other prolife organizers for staying with this story when few others would. Aside from this, the whole sordid story is a tragedy.
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We should rejoice at their mea culpas – that they have seen the wrong they have committed by not reporting on this story. However, to be clear, this rejoicing is not gloating. It is more a sign of relief.
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This is a great article and we must take advantage of this opportunity. I have many thoughts and mixed emotions. First of all, I sincerely admire Kirsten Powers who is a liberal and Democratic strategist for her wonderful work in this. She is a pro life convert like many others of us. The fact that she was a liberal helped tremendously in getting people’s attention. I watched the Anderson Cooper 30 min. presentation but was very miffed to say the least at the end when the CNN executive dismissed any notion of a cover up or black out of the story saying that it was only conservatives who were criticizing (as though our criticism is not important) and we were only doing it to gin up our base. He said CNN made a business decision not to cover it thinking it would not be of interest to their audience. No agenda. That made me angry.
But Jill is right let’s use our foot in the door to educate the “mushy middle” but also to point out that Cecile Richards had a bad PR week. A lobbyist for PP in FL had to publicly defend their opposition to a bill that would require medical care to infants who survive abortions and then the tweet fest shamed her into breaking her silence on Gosnell to condemn him for doing what the PP lobbyists was advocating. Also we need to make necessary points about our lack of state regs and inspection on abortion. I know in TN we are about to mount a battle that will be watched nationally to put a constitutional amendment that neutralizes our state constitution on the issue of legalized abortions because without it due to a legal challenge from the ACLU and PP we cannot put ANY restrictions around abortion absent parental consent including regulation and inspecting abortion mills. So we use this to make our point.
One final thing is kudos to the ones who started the idea of the tweet fest and it encouraged and inspired me so much to be a part of it. Not in love with twitter but to see everyone getting involved and to see how we can use social media to bypass the MSM and literally shame them into covering it or examining themselves simply made my day. I couldn’t stop tweeting…..to be a part of change in a positive way just blessed me to no end. Kudos again to all. We made a difference and they heard us. Wow….
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We must continue to tie Planned Parenthood to this tragedy. It is responsible for blocking reasonable clinic regulations passed by the states for the last 20 years. They own this mess.
We must tie them to the Gosnell mill as reflections of what is happening throughout the country.
We must help the media to connect the dots.
We must provide the media with our own examples throughout the nation of the Gosnell type mills in our own states and cities.
We must connect politicians like Obama and Sibelius to the abortion industry as covering up for them and blocking any legislation. In the Kansas situation, preventing Phil Kline from investigating PP is just one example of the corruption while Sibelius was governor.
Point out PP’s failure to comply with GAO reports and their efforts to get MORE tax dollars for their industry.
There is no time to gloat. PP will be launching a media counter-attack and we must be prepared. The media will want to drop this and turn the focus against the pro-life movement. We must appeal to their innate sense of fairness and justice by reminding them of the victims.
We can use this incident to open the media’s eyes to the child predators, the trafficking, the abortionists practicing “bare” (without malpractice coverage), the circuit riders like Carhart, the failure of states to enforce inspection regulations. The list goes on.
Finally this event offers us an opportunity to show the media that we can provide honest information, background checks on historical data and cooperation in telling them where to look for corroboration so that they can do their job professionally.
All we want is honest reporting.
The truth is – if the media had been honest 30 years ago, there would never have been a Kermit Gosnell allowed to practice medicine. he truth about the horror of abortion would have known at the national level. My reference is to the Chicago Sun Times story of the “Abortion Profiteers” (Feb. 13, 1978), and the Philadelphia Inquirer story of “Abortion: The Dreaded Complication” (Aug. 2, 1981).
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I don’t think this is any sort of apology or acknowledgement of wrongdoing. I think this is the attempt to save face after being shown and proven to be so biased in their “news” “reporting” there was no longer any way it could be denied and they are simply trying to salvage the last tiny bit of the appearance of legitimacy they are able. This is their lament at being discovered as phonies. They are only sorry about having been revealed.
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Post-abortive people need our prayers like never before.
Lord, please heal them, show them that nothing can separate any of us from your love. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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There’s nothing to gloat about. When Gosnell’s trial is over and the story is forgotten by most of the nation again, babies will still be butchered for profit. We have to pray that God will change individual hearts all over the place, including those in the media.
We are right about the media blackout, the politicians, especially Obama, ignoring the gruesome monster Gosnell and his pile of tiny corpses. Whether they admit it or not, they know we’re right as well. But pride on our parts won’t accomplish anything. Righteous indignation that drives us to pray for changed hearts — that’s the ticket. And keep the pressure on always. Never let up.
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There should be zero gloating, just words of appreciation when they do a good job. Anderson Cooper’s covereage totally floored me:
http://www.caintv.com/cnn-finally-covers-gosnell-on
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Aren’t you folks mostly free enterprise loving Republicans? Do you stand outside McDonalds and yell that they don’t serve pizza? Do you go to your local Ford dealership and scream that they don’t carry Chevy brands? Do you go to the GAP and yell that they don’t carry lawn mowers?
The media in this country is largely for profit, is meant to make money, and covers what it feels will generate the most money. As consumers, we have literally hundreds of places to get the news that we want now. It is both a blessing and curse.
Should places have covered the trial? The question seems a bit irrelevant to me.
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Wow, Ex-GOP. You’re really striving for full troll status, aren’t you?
Babies being slaughtered. Nothing to see here. Keep it local so they can sell car ads. It shouldn’t matter to anyone else. Yeesh!
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Ex-GOP: Media doing it to make money? Why then are they going out of business. There are no more afternoon papers, some daily papers cutting back to only a few days a week, magazines quit publishing or cut way back in the number of pages per issue (Saw a Time mag. that was only 60 pages), major networks way down on the list of viewers, etc.
If they do not change money would not matter anyway as paper burns.
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Patty – not saying they are doing an awesome job at making money (well, some are).
I think a great thing about today’s society is that I can pick and choose the type of news that I want, and I don’t want any sort of mandate/law or anything to specify how much coverage is needed of certain things.
Hans – I’m not saying it wasn’t relevant, and I’m surprised some places didn’t cover it – but that is their choice. Can I be on the board of what Fox News should have to cover? Guessing you wouldn’t support that?!?
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Jill,
The reason for the pro-life movement is the salvation of souls just as much as it isthe saving of innocent human life. We don’t gloat over the realization of another regarding any other sin in their life, and it has no place here either. Jesus said there is more rejoicing in Heaven over one repentent sinner than if 99 righteous men give praise. More reason not to gloat.
This moment is cause for us to find some common ground with the other side. If they are horrified that theinternal decapitations of babies born alive, the crushing of the spinal columns and severing of their cervical spinal cords, is horrifying, then we should simply agree with them in a spirit of unanimity. In their hearts they know that the internal dismemberments of the same babies is just as brutal. But convoersions often come in stages.
St Paul said that if we are to boast, let us boast in the Lord, meaning that we should boast of the saving power of God. To my fellow pro-lifers who would gloat, I say this:
If you do not weep for the lost pro-aborts as you weep for Gosnell’s victims, then you have missed the ultimate goal of the movement. Those butchered babies live secure in Heaven today, while Gosnell is headed for eternal damnation unless he repents. In 1 John 4:20-21 the Evangelist tells us,
“If anyone says ‘mylove is fixed on God’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. One who has no love for the brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen.”
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I am still mindful of what Reality said a day or two ago — No one was covering this, because the MSM didn’t think it would interest the news consumers. FOX News, in particular, has a real nose for what Americans want to learn about — and they didn’t have a reporter in that empty news box either, just like the rest of the no-shows.
They all thought that Americans have become so accustomed to the sterile mass killing by abortion that we wouldn’t care to hear it. A few decades ago, a woman killed by a botched abortion was national news. Nowadays, women die from abortion complications about one per month, and MSM doesn’t notice.
Gosnell’s story is only news because his clinic was so dirty. Now even the lousy, dirty clinics have become the news norm, and so Carhart and Delaware Planned Parenthood get no press.
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who was gloating?
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Gloating to me means you take some enjoyment in something. How can anyone who loves God enjoy this? Babies were tortured and killed. Women were killed and others maimed. Kermit Gosnell, who God loves, is a sad soul with blood on his hands. What a horrible story.
I pray it wakes some people up. We need to stop killing children.
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“Ex-GOP: Media doing it to make money? Why then are they going out of business.”
Why then are conservatives so aggrieved at the lack of coverage of this story in the mainstream press? It’s like complaining that a store that’s going out of business, one for which you’ve already found a suitable replacement for your own shopping needs, has a poor selection of goods.
I asked this is an earlier post and no one could explain to me why they find it so bothersome that all these soon-to-be-extinct old media dinosaurs are supposedly burying or outright censoring politically inconvenient stories. Isn’t that just a silly thing to fret over?
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I don’t think this is any sort of apology or acknowledgement of wrongdoing. I think this is the attempt to save face after being shown and proven to be so biased in their “news” “reporting” there was no longer any way it could be denied and they are simply trying to salvage the last tiny bit of the appearance of legitimacy they are able. This is their lament at being discovered as phonies. They are only sorry about having been revealed.
All of this may be–and in some cases certainly is–absolutely, 100% correct. But good behavior should be reinforced in order to encourage future good behavior. Even if the motives are selfish. Gloating is not reinforcement, at least not generally, and should probably be avoided.
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Of COURSE news organizations have the choice. That is the freakin’ point. What you choose NOT to cover says a zillion words about your agenda, your fear, your inhumanity.
Babies were slaughtered, trolls. You got a heart in there somewhere? Or is it only reserved for poor Beyonce and Jay-Z who are getting picked on because they went to Cuba?
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Excellent post Jill, thank you.
Gerald Nobel, very well said, thanks.
Gloating just doesn’t seem very pro-life to me, so indeed we should not gloat. I am glad to see some non-reporters starting to in some way say they were wrong not to report, even if they are making excuses.
However, I do wonder if any of them would have come forward if Kirsten Powers had not called them out. Well, if they wouldn’t have, then it’s even more of a good thing that Powers spoke up.
Hopefully some of the hearts of these reporters are being changed. Maybe they will start actually reporting the news instead of making it by avoiding what doesn’t suit their agenda. Maybe some of them will actually become pro-life. I hope and pray for all of this.
Del, Delaware PP is getting some press now. They’ve had to close or suspend abortions at a couple of PP facilities due to unsanitary conditions and an AIDS scare. One of those clinics is the same one at which the grandmother was attacked while videoing one of several ambulances that had been in and out of that PP in recent weeks.
Interestingly, right when this bad news for them breaks, they self-righteously try to deflect attention from themselves by finally speaking out on the Gosnell trial by condemning the conditions at his facilities. What hypocrisy!
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Again, who was gloating. Before the intelectuals start preaching to fellow pro-lifers about gloating, doesn’t someone have to be gloating?
who was gloating?
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Ex-GOP says: I don’t want any sort of mandate/law or anything to specify how much coverage is needed of certain things.
Sure, that’s what this is about. Pro-lifers are shouting for MANDATES & LAWS about how much media coverage abortion horrors should receive. Pfft. Your comments on this post are phenomenally obtuse.
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Victor Galipi says:
Del, Delaware PP is getting some press now. They’ve had to close or suspend abortions at a couple of PP facilities due to unsanitary conditions and an AIDS scare. One of those clinics is the same one at which the grandmother was attacked while videoing one of several ambulances that had been in and out of that PP in recent weeks.
I’m no newshound, so I am glad to be corrected…. but can you tell me which mainstream media outlets are airing the story about the conditions at PP Delaware?
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Jasper,
It’s indelicate to call out one’s peers on very bad behavior and more charitable to simply state the problem in more general terms and then address it. Believe me, there’s been gloating.
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I have seen more than one pro-choice friend on my FB feed share, or comment on someone else sharing, this article, with full horror and often with thanks to a friend for bringing the story to their attention. I think that’s pretty amazing.
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Del, an ABC local affiliate in Philadelphia, for one:
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=9059172
But they don’t share the details I have seen from other sources.
Sorry for the misunderstanding. My point was not specifically that the mainstream media was covering the Delaware PP fiasco, just that it was getting coverage. Pretty much as with the Gosnell case.
What really got me was the hypocrisy of PP trying to get attention off themselves by attacking the Gosnell clinic conditions.
Of course sanitary conditions doesn’t make abortions right. It just makes it look cleaner, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing.
Oh, I don’t know if you knew this, but even though FOX News had no people in the press box, they covered the Gosnell story on a few different shows a couple weeks or so ago, including Huckabee, Hannity and O’Reilly.
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I also wonder- what is there to gloat about?
The questions people are asking right now:
What other kind of doctor keeps severed feet?
What other kind doctor has to record and document of severed feet?
What other kind of doctor operates in filthy conditions?
Abortion is terribly sick, and Kermit the Snipper has brought it to the fore for lots of unengaged people to consider. As the media is forced to look into this trial, average Americas have a chance to ponder in their own hearts about where lax abortion laws have led us.
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As I’ve pointed out, a website for which I regularly write, TruTV.com’s Crime Library, has extensively covered this case.
When columnist Mike Adams made a play on this alleged serial murderer’s first name and called him “Kermit the Dog” (alluding to Sesame Street’s Kermit the Frog), two people wrote in to protest the insult to dogs. One wrote, “You owe an apology to canines everywhere.”
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I’ve had to learn how to go numb to the abortion topic because it hurts and angers me so bad. The Gosnell story is horrendous. The most innocent among US are the unborn. All these babies knew about life is horrible pain, cold, loud noises and light. The babies never had a chance. The “doctors” job was to kill it. Abortion is murder.
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Don’t stop beating on the mainstream media for hiding the nastaaay abortion clinics, their killings and their medical malpractice.
Journalosts can apologize for hiding one huge story, keep on hiding the rest of the stories, and covering for Obamanator, the abortionist in chief.
Don’t let up.
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Ex-GOP wrote, “Hans – I’m not saying it wasn’t relevant, and I’m surprised some places didn’t cover it – but that is their choice.”
Maybe I’m seeing too much because I know Ex-GOP’s statist inclinations, but consider the assumptions Ex-GOP has made:
(1) The fact that somebody else has a choice means that I should not criticize it.
(2) If something’s wrong, the civil government should enact a law to force everybody into right behaviour.
While I do believe that there should be laws against murder, including laws against abortion, and that they should be enforced, I do not believe (as does Lrning on April 13 at 6:18) in Pravda for America. Believing in free speech, I believe in a free press–and my right and Christian responsibility to criticize the particularly ungodly press that currently exists in America.
As for Jill Stanek, she isn’t here evaluating the attitude of the press; she’s evaluating the attitude of we who disagree with the press. She isn’t first of all concerned here with how other Americans or Christians see us; she’s concerned with how God sees us.
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Oops, Lrning on April 13 at 6:18 pm was saying the same thing as I am. He (she) was being sarcastic.
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Jasper, I haven’t seen anyone gloating. I am trying to preclude. I was analyzing my own thoughts when I read the eyes of others being opened and the things I’d like to say – and deserve to say. But those things wouldn’t help, as much as I might feel better after saying them. Those things might slam a door shut that has opened just a crack.
That door may again close, but I don’t want it to be because of us. I want the door to keep opening. I want to be here to hold that person’s hand as s/he walks through it, not bite it.
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Does gloating mean me not being surprised AT ALL that this happens everyday in back alley mills with abortionist hacks?
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No, Carla, that would be common sense… :)
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:)
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It’s critical we approach expanding coverage of the Gosnell trial with great care.
Dr. Nadal is right – this is a serious dialogue opening for many people who may have dismissed pro-life messages before, or have now realized the humanity of all human beings, regardless of their stage of development. A great example of changing hearts can be found here:
http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2013/04/13/gosnellgate/
Great observation and perspective Jill – and maybe a reminder for pro-life advocates to support and thank those who are approaching this trial with journalistic integrity, such as J.D. Mullane, and Kirsten Powers.
Another important point – thank their supporting editorial staff and management for their balanced coverage as well.
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Ex-RINO says September 6, 2012 at 8:41pm “I’ve actually started to seriously think about not voting this election.”
Ex-RINO says September 9, 2012 at 8:27pm “I’ve far from decided what I’m going to do this election… I can’t vote for Romney. But beyond that, I’m still deciding.”
Ex-RINO says: January 5, 2013 at 12:58pm “I think all kindergarten classes, by order of the state, should have a day in which they go see a live birth, go view an abortion, go to a funeral home and watch some prep work, and watch live sex in action.”
Ex-RINO says: June 10, 2012 at 11:08 pm “For the record, I have three kids, my wife and I would never ever have considered an abortion, and I’m against it as I equate it to murder.”
Ex-RINO says: January 5, 2013 at 12:58pm “I think all kindergarten classes, by order of the state, should have a day in which they go see a live birth, go view an abortion, go to a funeral home and watch some prep work, and watch live sex in action.”
Ex-RINO says: January 17, 2013 at 7:02pm Liberals care less about pre-born children than children after they are born. Conservatives care less about children after they are born than pre-born children.
So there – seems equal!
Ex-GOP says: April 13, 2013 at 2:19 pm
“The media in this country is largely for profit, is meant to make money, and covers what it feels will generate the most money.”
ex-RINO and full fledged, boot licking, butt kissing democRAT,
You don’t just evade the ‘truth’, you avoid it like a muslim avoids pork.
Silly us. We thought ‘journalist’ had a professional obligation to provide us with accurate information upon which we could make informed responsible decisions.
One lunatic kill 20 children with a gun and all the media are the story like a bum on bologna sandwich.
A licensed medical professional is charged with killing at least 6 newborn infants and one adult woman and then the butcher jokes about it with his accomplices and that ain’t deemed ‘news’ that will sell?!!
Whatever happened to, “If it bleeds, it leads” and ‘getting the scoop’.
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Jill,
There is no ‘gloating’ going on. We have no basis for ‘gloating’.
If it were against the law to commit journalistic malpractice and the lapdogs were on trial for
‘grave indifference to the truth’, ‘disregard for justice’, and insensitivity to human sufferring’,
then we might have a reason to begin to ‘gloat’.
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Ken -
Journalists don’t own papers and don’t pick what gets published. Large companies are in charge and pick content.
It is understandable that news has become more left learning over time – as the right have flocked to other news sources, those left are the consumers that must be kept to generate revenue.
Just like Fox, just like MSNBC, just like CNN, just like RedState, just like Drudge, just like the New Republic…they all must pay bills. That is their obligation.
Again, not saying they shouldn’t have covered the case – I just find it funny, this right wing lock step of how all these stations and papers that they don’t read, and admit to not reading or watching, don’t give the coverage that they demand.
It is rather silly, don’t you think?
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No, what’s rather silly is their insisting they abide by journalistic integrity out of one side of their mouths, and trumpeting a left-wing “lockstep” with the other.
And kudos to J.D. Mullane in my local paper. You see, we have to search out for columnists we like. “The facts” are too often editorialized in the news stories.
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It’s been my observation that the phrase “so goes the family, so goes society” is never more true than when it comes to abortion. Let me be clear: I’m not saying this in a gloating manner, I’m making an observation based on what I’ve experienced.
As a country, we’re allowing women to end their pregnancies before said human is even out of the womb. We’ve redefined when life begins just so that nobody has to be uncomfortable with abortion. It’s become evident that objective truth as to when life truly begins doesn’t exist anymore; which, if it doesn’t exist, if it’s all opinion, then why are we so shocked at what’s going on?
I’m not saying we SHOULDN’T be. Maybe if we, as a whole, get uncomfortable enough we’ll do something about, but I’m saying that this is what we, as a whole, have decided we wanted.
The minute we decided a woman should be able to have an abortion for any and all reasons–that it was HER decision (“my body my choice”) is the minute we’ve declined to hold people truly accountable. After all, it’s the woman’s choice, it’s HER body, nobody else…then she should be HAPPY with it. In fact, you shouldn’t question it because it’s HER choice. Biscuits and gravy forbid we question ANYONE’S decision on anything. (Yeah, I’m a Southerner, hence the whole “biscuits and gravy” thing).
Abortion is supposed to be the savior of women. Some people on the pro-choice side have criticized pro-lifers for wanting proper medical regulations to be observed. Then, this happens, and it’s like “Well, you’ve been trying to stop pro-lifers at every turn, then if there’s NO checks and balances, then what’s the standard? What should we expect?”
What I don’t get is if abortion is legal and perfectly okay then why shouldn’t there be properly cleaned, sanitized, and proper regulations enforced? Ordinary doctors lose their licenses and get called out all the time for having sub-par environments, yet, time and time again abortion locations have been allowed to slide.
Lila Rose’s Live Action team has been criticized for trying to bring these problems to light. Nobody wants to talk about them, everyone says that her operations are biased and set up and wrongly done. What’s wrong with bringing to light a real problem and let’s face it, there ARE problems within the abortion industry.
So many pro-choicers don’t want abortion to be outlawed, yet they also cry foul when anybody tries to point out a problem. If women are so important to the pro-choice side, then why aren’t they holding the abortion providers to a higher standard? Why are they being allowed to slide?
Maybe it’s because, deep down, somewhere in the loneliest corners of our collective consciousness we realize there’s a real problem with abortion…it’s just easier to ignore than try to stress the importance of people towing the line.
You pro-choicers want abortion on demand, you got it. How come you’re not demanding that the locations be clean, sanitary, and held to high standards that often other medical places are held to? Why are they the exception? Why do you try to hush up pro-lifers when we call out asking WHY some places are sub-par? It doesn’t make sense.
No, I’m not gloating, I’m scratching my head in utter confusion.
Stories like this don’t surprise me. Not because I’m not appalled by it, but because I’ve seen what the abortion mentality has done to us as a whole society. And I’m sad about it. I do hope and pray things change. It’s ghastly business.
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MiT,
I’ve often wondered the same thng about why abortion supporters claim to care about women but refuse to call filthy centers and bad doctors to task.
Bad press? Prob not so much, as they’d want abortion to look good, be safe, clean, etc.
The answer that makes sense to me is the classist and racist/eugenicist undercurrent that runs deep in the proabortion mentality. As long as their middle and upperclass, mostly white daughters and friends can obtain a clean and safe abortion, they *don’t care* that poor and minority women most often get shabby clinics and doctors with problematic records. They let those doctors get a pass because they don’t care about the kind of woman who goes there. They don’t associate with such low income and minority women, and they’re not in their families.
It’s crappy but true.
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The above theory can be applied to most reporters and their bosses, too.
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I’m think the original question, regarding gloating, is not called for, even at this point, or even as a preemptive move.
It assumes that the “mea culpas” really are that. I don’t believe that they are. This belief has been expressed by previous posters. I think that those posters are correct; the “apologies” are plainly posturing by folks who are very good at it- disingenuous folks, spin-meisters, whatever. Heck, as a coach I hear the “I’m sorry” used as a deflector shield by high school kids all the time!
I WOULD say the collective noses of the media need to be rubbed in it a LOT, in order that they might not repeat this misbehavior- BUT that won’t do, as I am sure that they do not see it as misbehavior. They probably see it as one they “almost got away with”, and now that they haven’t, time to do what they always do, circle the wagons (as Rush Limbaugh well describes this apologist tactic). Cloak this in the best possible terms, “We had no idea…”, “We’ll do better next time”, and even the cheeky “Well, how come the pro-lifers never said anything, either?”
The rule of thumb that I have long used about all this is that “They always lie.” If you think they are remorseful, think again. Many of them don’t even believe in “sin”.
It might be instructive to read Whittaker Chambers’ “Witness”. I believe he called this fight before it was fully undertaken. He also described our opponents very well. I think we need to remember that they remain our opponents, which is not to say they are not the objects of our prayers.
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Joan, Ex, et al… Just because we live in a free market society doesn’t mean we stop caring or noticing when someone is providing an awful service and doing a terrible job. Just because many of us are conservatives (though not all) means we don’t care when someone with a different political bent is ignoring a salient issue. It’s like you guys are debating caricatures of people and not us real people.
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Chris –
That’s fair. I just thought, and continue to think that it is a bit odd to see people complaining about the content of media outlets that they don’t watch and typically slander when given the choice.
As long it seems fully clear that nobody thinks anything should really be done (legislation), and folks were just having a good whine fest, that’s fine with me.
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