Media Bias in the News: Planned Parenthood, Center for Medical Progress, and Awards

Over the weekend we saw several stories about how Planned Parenthood had hired a firm to do a “forensic” study of a few of the Center for Medical Progress undercover videos. The national media, who had been mostly mute about the subject, suddenly found it newsworthy. I wrote about that on my political blog. Many national news organizations couldn’t wait to trumpet misleading headlines like, “Sting videos of Planned Parenthood were totally manipulated, forensic analysis finds.”

If anyone bothered to read the 10 page report, they could plainly see that headline (just one of many) was a serious overstatement, and implied a level of deceitfulness that was not proven in the report.

Center for Medical Progress released a detailed response. In it they highlighted the fact that even a partisan firm like Fusion GPS (who did the analysis) admitted:

“This analysis did not reveal widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation” and that it “shows no evidence of audio manipulation.”

And CMP went on to explain every issue the firm found in every video. You can read both sides of the story and form your own opinion.

But you will really have to search for this response by CMP.  Because it’s not on any major news sites.

Even though the news media reported on the Planned Parenthood analysis, they haven’t mention this response. Just like they didn’t report on the largest coordinated protest of Planned Parenthood facilities a few weekends ago. Hundreds of cities, thousands of people, barely made local news reports.If you’re keeping score at home: For most major news organizations, the videos from CMP are not newsworthy. An analysis done by the organization being investigated is newsworthy, a response from the group doing the investigating is not newsworthy.

I’m not the first to point out the blatant bias in the news for Planned Parenthood and against any who criticize them. Sean Davis at the federalist.com wrote a piece about it. Did you know that Planned Parenthood gives out awards for media excellence? Did you know that Journalists not only accept awards from an organization they report on (or should report on) but say they are honored to get them? In all 16 journalists received Maggie Awards for Media Excellence. These awards were started in the late 1970’s to “recognize exceptional contributions by the media and arts and entertainment industries that enhance the public’s understanding of reproductive rights and health care issues, including contraception, sex education, teen pregnancy, abortion, and international family planning.”

Does that strike you as odd?

Imagine a political party giving out awards for Media Excellence. Awards that recognize exceptional contributions by the media and arts and entertainment industries that enhance the public’s understanding of this political parties stance on issues and work in the community.  Would any self respecting journalist accept one?

It’s not a journalists job to help any organization enhance the public’s understanding on anything. They don’t report news in order to help an organization, they report news so that the public is aware of what it should be aware of. News media should report what is in the public interest, not an organization’s interest. What objective journalist would want any organization to even imply that they might have been trying to help an organization instead of fairly reporting things that are newsworthy?

But, then I forget that objective journalism in the USA is dead.

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Let’s Get Gut-Level Honest About Those Abortion Videos

“So it is a sin for the person who knows to do what is good and doesn’t do it.” James 4:17 HCSB

I want to try to explain why I’m writing so much about abortion recently, specifically about the videos from Center for Medical Progress. This is normally a blog about media from a biblical worldview. I talk about indie filmmaking. My controversial posts are normally limited. But not lately.

If I dig down and get gut-level honest about this. I’m not intellectually shocked by anything in those videos. I don’t think this is a new practice. I’ve heard about the possibility of fetal body parts being sold before. I’ve seen still pictures of babies in the womb. And even a couple of images of babies after abortion. They are pretty horrible. But they didn’t get this kind of reaction out of me. I never wrote a blog post, or posted to social media about abortion like this.

The only time I can remember feeling this way before was way back in 2003. I was doing a video for Sanctity of Life Sunday for a church. I found some footage of actual abortions taking place. They were not graphic like the current videos, but the sound of the machine… I was literally weeping as I listened to the sound of a human life being snuffed out, and sucked into a container. I remember crying when I showed the finished product to my pastor. I was heartbroken over what I had seen.

I think that’s why this is so raw for me. These videos ripped that scab off.

These videos pull an emotional reaction out of me. I intellectually understand abortion. But I hadn’t felt anything about it for a long time. It was something that I didn’t like, but It didn’t impact my daily life. These videos, showing the cavalier attitudes of the workers, showing them saying things like “It’s a baby” and “It’s another boy”… coupled with the gruesome pictures… negotiating the price of livers and so on… I couldn’t ignore this anymore.

Right now, these videos cause pain. I hurt when I watch them. But humanity is pretty good about scabbing over, dulling the pain.

When you get right down to it, these videos don’t resonate because of the controversy of potential law breaking. People react to them because they pull the veil back from abortion. Suddenly the gory details are on display. As is the casual, almost playful, tone of the staff as they talk about their grisly work. It’s this, not the legal aspects, that cause the emotional reaction. That’s why “#anotherboy” was trending on twitter. Not because Planned Parenthood may or may not have broken the law, but because another boy was killed and we couldn’t ignore it.

I know, I’ve said it myself. We should’t be so caught up in politics. The best way to change the world is to change hearts. But maybe, changing a heart requires ripping the covering off stuff we’ve buried and forgotten. This really isn’t political for me. I couldn’t care less which party or candidate is for or against abortion or whatever. So I am writing some posts about this right now.

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Previous Posts:

Former Planned Parenthood Director Confirms Her Affiliate Profited from Sale of Fetal Body Parts

Court Stops Release of Some Parts of Anti Abortion Videos

Are Americans Already Desensitized to Selling Aborted Babies?

Former Planned Parenthood Director Confirms Her Affiliate Profited from Sale of Fetal Body Parts

On Wednesday July 29, 2015 the Texas senate Committee of Health and Human Services began an investigation into the illegal selling of fetal body parts. Planned Parenthood chose not to attend the hearing.

About 2 and a half hours into the hearing you can hear testimony from Abby Johnson, former Director of the Gulf Shores Planned Parenthood affiliate.

Her testimony supports the videos from the Center for Medical Progress. In particular the portion at 3:18 and following, where she discusses the fees they charged to “recoup” their costs for tissue donation, and what it actually cost to donate specimens for research studies.

This is testimony from the former director. There is at least one Planned Parenthood clinic that charged more for the specimens than it cost. And the extra was, in her words, “sheer profit” for the clinic. She goes on to estimate what a Houston area clinic might make in a given month: $120,000 from the sale of fetal parts to research clinics.

This video is originally from the website of the Texas Senate. You can stream the whole hearing here:
The portion used in this Youtube clip is about 2:30:00 into the hearing.

More about Abby Johnson here.

Previous articles:

Court Stops Release of Some Parts of Anti Abortion Videos

Are Americans Already Desensitized to Selling Aborted Babies?

[I’m going to stop apologizing for posting about this instead of specifically media related topics. I have to write about this right now. I’ll post later about why this is important enough for me to spend so much time on it. But this is something I have to do right now.

Comments are disabled on this post because if you agree with me, great! And if you don’t, the only thing you can say is “she’s lying” so let’s assume that has already been said.]

Court Stops Release of Some Parts of Anti Abortion Videos

According to the Associated Press (via MSN), a CA court has blocked part of future videos released by the Center for Medical Progress.

“The Los Angeles Superior Court order issued Tuesday prohibits the Center for Medical Progress from releasing any video of three high-ranking StemExpress officials taken at a restaurant in May.”

A pro-life news site explains further:

The restraining order reportedly only pertains to the footage of the Stem Express employees, meaning that any other footage, including that featuring Planned Parenthood employees, can still be released as planned.

In an exclusive comment to LifeSiteNews after the release of the court order, Daleiden said that, at the end of the day, what happened in the courtroom may actually be a victory for the pro-life group.

“The ruling is very narrow, concerning only one specific meeting, and it is temporary and contingent pending further litigation,” he said. “The judge actually threw out completely the part of StemExpress’ case where they were asking to suppress the documents on their baby parts sales.”

“It was a much better day for us than it was for them and Planned Parenthood.”

The company claims that the videographers broke the law under California’s anti-wiretapping laws. The producers say they followed the law.

Here’s a statement from Center from Medical Progress:

StemExpress, a for-profit company partnered with over 30 abortion clinics, including Planned Parenthood, to harvest and sell aborted baby parts and provide a “financial benefit” to Planned Parenthood clinics, is attempting to use meritless litigation to cover-up this illegal baby parts trade, suppress free speech, and silence the citizen press reporting on issues of burning concern to the American public. They are not succeeding—their initial petition was rejected by the court, and their second petition was eviscerated to a narrow and contingent order about an alleged recording pending CMP’s opportunity to respond. The Center for Medical Progress follows all applicable laws in the course of our investigative journalism work and will contest all attempts from Planned Parenthood and their allies to silence our First Amendment rights and suppress investigative journalism.

Regardless of your feeling on these videos, any time a subject of a controversial documentary film project is able to get any sort of injunction from the court, restricting any part of the release of that project, filmmakers should pay attention.

In this case, while Planned Parenthood has repeatedly claimed the information in the videos is false and “deceptively edited” (even though the entire interviews have been released) this temporary restraining order is not about that. It only pertains to whether the act of recording these people secretly was against the law or not.

Of course Stem Express doesn’t want more damning information shown. So they are using every means at their disposal to stop it. Planned Parenthood has set the stage already in their letter to news outlets. Part of that letter says:

“CMP gained access to Planned Parenthood facilities under false pretenses and filmed without securing approval from the Planned Parenthood staff being filmed or the patients whose privacy is compromised by this secret videotaping. The material should not be aired.”

I suspect Planned Parenthood to try some sort of legal action in order to “protect the privacy” of their patients.

As a filmmaker, I hope every legal effort to bar this content fails. Unless someone can prove that they knowingly put out false information, there is no reason this should be blocked. It would be a bad precedent for documentary films. So I want the video available.

As someone who is pro life, I want people to realize just how horrible these actions are. So I want people to see these videos.

[UPDATE: Here’s a post on the Constitutionality of the court’s actions.]

Are Americans Already Desensitized to Selling Aborted Babies?

(This might seem like another political post, but really it’s about attention span in the USA for important issues. But it is about a very political issue I am passionate about, so be warned.)

A couple weeks ago my twitter feed blew up with this video: (Warning, not for the faint at heart.)

Over 2 million people watched it. Social media, the news, blogs, everyone was talking about this horrific practice. Even if you support abortion… actually selling the tissue of aborted fetuses is illegal. The woman in the video actually says that Planned Parenthood corporate doesn’t really want to get involved with this sort of thing on the local level. But it’s obvious they know it goes on and don’t care.

Planned Parenthood went on the offensive, claiming deceptive editing, fraud and more. So the people who made the video released the entire unedited interview. It was big news for several days.

Then another video comes out. Someone is negotiating the amount the local Planned Parenthood office will get for each specimen.

This one has been seen by over a million people. Again my social media feeds were lit up about this. Congress even briefly discussed taking away the $500 million in tax money Planned Parenthood gets every year.

I saw Planned Parenthood try to get ahead of the story by spinning footage that hasn’t even come out yet. Saying they think they were taped in certain places, and describing how that footage might be distorted, etc.

I saw an article about why the video makers went undercover to do this. Still pretty big news.

This week, the first episode of the web series was posted.

My news feed has been remarkably quiet.

I waited to watch all three videos until today. I read about them, saw the reactions online and in the news, but I didn’t actually go watch them until today. So, it’s fresh for me.

The first 2 videos disgusted me. To think that people sit in restaurants and talk about selling parts of children that were murdered. That’s disgusting. I know it’s worse because I believe abortion is murder. (and let’s be frank: How can you buy a heart, liver, brain, kidneys, whatever to do research of human health and not agree this is a little person??!!)

But this 3rd video? I will never get the image of these people discussing how good the collection of specimens were, and seeing toes and fingers, kidneys and even a spinal cord of a little person. I fought back tears and swallowed hard not to puke all over my desk. This is atrocious! 

Abortions happen over a million times each year. Here’s a clock that will turn your stomach: Number of Abortions in US and World.

Wait. Maybe it won’t turn your stomach because we’ve already become used to the number of abortions each year.

And now, it seems, barely 3 weeks into a series of expose’ videos, our attention has wavered. The third and most egregious video isn’t really that important to us. And the one next week will be less important. And the one after that… and so on.

It seemed like a good plan. Release a new video each week. Keep the issue in the forefront. But I’m not sure anyone will care a month from now.

I know we get used to things, and just glaze over horrible stuff each day. But fight it. Watch the videos. Contact your elected officials. Tell them what you think. Share this content. This is just wrong.