Ah, I’m afraid this post is a bit grim, not the usual light-hearted fare. There are times, however, when an illustrator and cartoonist must use what skill he has to speak out on important issues. This is one of those times.
There’s a sensational trial going on in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It began on March 18th. Until a few days ago, however, you might not have heard about it. That’s because most media outlets ignored the trial. Seats reserved for the press were empty.
On trial: Dr. Kermit Gosnell who ran a filthy abortion clinic for four decades, and
is accused of murdering newborn babies, performing hundreds of illegal late-term abortions, and killing and injuring numerous patients. Despite ongoing complaints, local and state authorities looked the other way and did nothing.
Big story, right? You’d never know it. The media opted out, and has been covering other pressing matters. I got the idea for this cartoon after watching the Sunday ABC television news. Nary a mention of Gosnell, but they found time to cover Tiger Woods’ assessed penalty at the Masters golf tournament.
So why hasn’t the media seen fit to cover the story? One can only hypothesize, and many conservative commentators have: they believe the news media has ignored the case because of ideological bias. Media studies have shown that the great majority of U.S. journalists are pro-abortion and vote Democratic. The best known of these studies
is The Media Elite by Lichter, Lichter, and Rothman.
In short, the media has been ignoring the Gosnell case because it makes abortion and abortion providers look bad. Impossible to prove, of course, and most journalists would deny it, but I suspect it’s true, and so do others.
Things are changing a bit as I write this. The Atlantic published a big story about the case on Friday, April 12th, and some liberal commentators are having second thoughts about ignoring the story.
At the end of his Atlantic piece, Conor Friedersdorf writes that the Gosnell case “arguably informs the abortion debate in any number of ways, and has numerous plausible implications for abortion policy…” I agree.
No matter what your stance on abortion may be, I submit that we can’t have an honest debate on the issue if pertinent information is suppressed. The media has not been doing its job.
What do you think? Had you heard of the case? Is media bias something you think about? Did you know that most journalists share similar opinions on social issues and political candidates? Hope you’ll leave a comment.
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