Friday, May 16, 2014

Washington Post fails to check science on when life begins, exposes media's bias on abortion

In a flailing attempt to attack a prolife politician for making a statement about the science of when life begins, the Washington Post exposed how media bias on abortion prevents most journalists from doing what they should do. 

At the Federalist, Brandon McGinley examines the number of errors in the Washington Post piece and compares the blind eye most journalists turn towards the abortion industry to Upton Sinclair’s work to expose the meatpacking industry. 

I couldn’t help but think of the celebrated muckraker Sinclair as Philip Bump’s attempt to discuss when life begins on the Washington Post’s “The Fix” blog ricocheted around the Internet yesterday.  It wasn’t just the content of Bump’s effort at explanatory journalism—the obedient acceptance of a pro-abortion organization’s spin, the ignorance of embryonic science—that was so galling.  More than that, it was the posture of incuriosity toward his topic that showed just how poorly today’s media compares with the courageous figures of years past......

In the same way, the media continues to permit the practice of abortion in America to go on without scrutiny.  Let us be clear: This is not a political complaint, but a journalistic scandal.  The great conceits of journalism—speaking truth to power, confronting the public with uncomfortable realities, giving a voice to the voiceless—are all abandoned when it comes to abortion.

What if we had a latter-day Upton Sinclair willing to expose our abortion regime, rather than the incurious mandarins who pathetically claim his mantle?  What would he find when he opens the door to the dungeon?

We’ve seen this bias and blind eye in Michigan as well.  When Right to Life of Michigan released a thorough, in-depth report on abortion clinic abuses and state regulatory agency failure in Michigan, the majority of media outlets could have cared less.  It wasn’t until the city of Muskegon shut down the filthy abortion clinic operated by Robert Alexander (more than a year after the initial report was released), that a couple of media outlets began to expose the problems which were noted in the report. 

When we exposed that the Michigan Democratic Party used a notorious abortion clinic owner in an ad supporting Gary Peters and that part of the ad was likely filmed inside an abortion clinic, not a single mainstream media outlet in Michigan took notice.