Gosnell Trial: The National Media Cover-Up

Editor’s note. On Thursday ten members of the U.S. House of Representatives took to the floor to call 
on the media to end its virtual blackout of the trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell, charged with eight counts of murder. The following are excerpts from the remarks of Rep. Smith, provided by his office.
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Rep. Chris Smith

Mr. Speaker, will the decades-long major national news media cover-up of the brutality—and violence—of abortion methods ever end? …
Dr. Kermit Gosnell is on trial for eight counts of murder.  One count is for the death of a woman who died during an abortion at his clinic.  Seven counts are for babies who survived their abortion and were born alive but then killed by severing their spinal cords with a pair of scissors.
In the words of the Grand Jury report: “Gosnell had a simple solution for unwanted babies: he killed them.  He didn’t call it that.  He called it ‘ensuring fetal demise.’  The way he ensured fetal demise was by sticking scissors in the back of the baby’s neck and cutting the spinal cord.  He called that ‘snipping.’  Over the years there were hundreds of ‘snippings’.

Indeed, the national news media has not only taken a pass and looked the other way, but their stunning indifference has done a grave disservice to Gosnell’s victims—the woman killed, other women injured and children slaughtered by Gosnell.  Because of the national media’s indefensible silence—because of their failure to report—other women and children at other abortion mills might be at risk.

Indeed, the Gosnell Grand Jury Report in January 2011 powerfully noted that an absence of press coverage—and gross negligence by health department personnel in Pennsylvania—enabled Gosnell to show a “contemptuous disregard for the health, safety, and dignity of his patients that continued for 40 years.”
Some media commenters, however, are beginning to take note of the national news media bias and blackout in the case.
Wednesday an editorial in the Investors Business Daily titled Newtown In The Clinic: Media Ignore The Gosnell Trial said
“Media Bias: A basketball coach who shoves and curses at his players merits constant coverage by a media also transfixed by Newtown. But a Philadelphia doctor on trial for murdering a woman and seven babies? It’s ignored.
Those who get their news from the three major networks have probably not heard of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, now on trial in Philadelphia, charged with seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of third-degree murder for killing seven babies who survived abortions and a woman who died after a botched pain-killer injection…

According to the Media Research Center, in one week Rice received 41 minutes, 26 seconds of air time on ABC, CBS and NBC in 36 separate news stories. Gosnell received zero coverage…
If Dr. Gosnell had walked into a nursery and shot seven infants with an AR-15, it would be national news and the subject of presidential hand-wringing.”
In Thursday’s edition of USA Today, columnist Kirsten Powers writes:
“Infant beheadings. Severed baby feet in jars. A child screaming after it was delivered alive during an abortion procedure. Haven’t heard about these sickening accusations?
It’s not your fault. Since the murder trial of Pennsylvania abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell began March 18, there has been precious little coverage of the case that should be on every news show and front page.”

She goes on to point out: “A Lexis-Nexis search shows none of the news shows on the three major national television networks has mentioned the Gosnell trial in the last three months. The exception is when Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan hijacked a segment on Meet the Press”
In a letter sent by Media Research Center President Brent Bozell and twenty prominent leaders call on the broadcast networks to stop censoring coverage of the trial, pointing out that as of April 4th, since the trial began ABC, CBS and NBC have given the story zero coverage in their morning and evening news shows.

Again I ask. When will the media blackout stop?  Will America ever be told about the brutality of abortion and the violence that is commonplace inside the abortion industry?  Or will the media continue to censor this trial of the century, because it exposes an all too inconvenient truth that not only are unborn children destroyed in these killing centers, but that even babies who survive the abortion can’t escape the deadly hand of the child predator.

Source NRLC News