Detroit Free Press rebuffs reader demand to cover Gosnell butchery
“the reason I haven’t written about Mr. Gosnell is the same reason Philadelphia journalists don’t write about homicide trials in Detroit”
The butchery of infants born alive after abortions at the Philadelphia clinic run by Kermit Gosnell is gruesome beyond description, as described in my prior post, A Culture of Death is their choice.
The details are not new. The horrific Grand Jury Report (h/t Dave Weigel) was issued over two years ago.
Yet this mass murder, reportedly of 100 infants although only seven cases were charged, has been met with near silence by the mainstream media. Kirsten Powers wrote yesterday:
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….
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 meant to foment outrage over an anti-abortion rights law in some backward red state.
The Washington Post has not published original reporting on this during the trial and The New York Times saw fit to run one original story on A-17 on the trial’s first day. They’ve been silent ever since, despite headline-worthy testimony.
Let me state the obvious. This should be front page news. When Rush Limbaugh attacked Sandra Fluke, there was non-stop media hysteria…. Yet, accusations of babies having their heads severed — a major human rights story if there ever was one — doesn’t make the cut….
The deafening silence of too much of the media, once a force for justice in America, is a disgrace.
One Legal Insurrection reader took matters into her own hands, contacting her local newspaper, The Detroit Free Press.
The Freep has been nearly silent on the slaughter, running just one story recently about the trial, an April 9 reprint from The Wilmington (DE) News Journal:
The story linked to other stories about the case at USA Today. Prior to that, the only recent Freep story I could find about Gosnell was a reprint on March 19 of a USA Today article about the start of the trial.
The reader wrote to the Deputy Editorial Page Editor to complain:
From: xxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 1:14 PM
To: Dickerson, Brian
Subject: WaitingAnd just where do I find your coverage and column on Kermit Gosnell.
You tend to side with the Progressive view.
Where is your column defending Kermit and his actions.
Waiting,
xxxxxxxxxxxx
———-
From: Dickerson, Brian
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 3:03 PM
To: xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Waitingxxxxxxxxxxxx:
I suspect this disappoint your desire to confirm a more sinister motive, but I submit to you that the reason I haven’t written about Mr. Gosnell is the same reason Philadelphia journalists don’t write about homicide trials in Detroit.
Brian Dickerson
Deputy Editorial Page Editor
Detroit Free Press/A Gannett Company
The reader also wrote to Leonard Pitts, a well-known syndicated columnist who writes for the Miami Herald and whose columns appear in the Detroit Free Press:
On Apr 10, 2013, at 12:58 PM, xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Waiting to read your column on Kermit Gosnell.
I am sure your insight would be valued.
Calling out hypocrites.
Respectfully,
xxxxxxxxxxxx
———-
From: Leonard Pitts
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 2:07 PM
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxSubject: Re: Waiting ….
Who?
I’ve never heard of him.
LP
———-
On Apr 11, 2013, at 1:07 PM, xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Well,
I would guess you’ve had enough time to Google “Kermit Gosnell”.
When is your article exposing what Kermit did going to be printed?
Or do you approve of Kermit?
Hypocrite watch,
xxxxxxxxxxxx
———-
From: Leonard Pitts
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 3:04 PM
To: DeniseSubject: Re: Still waiting
Actually, I haven’t Googled anything. I asked you an honest question and waited for an honest answer, which I guess is not forthcoming. I suppose I will look Mr. Gosnell up at some point just to satisfy my own curiosity, but whoever he is and whatever he did, I doubt I’ll write about it at this point. One thing I can’t stand is readers who think they can bait or dare me into writing something in order to prove myself to them.
Get over yourself.
LP
I reached out last night to both Dickerson and Pitts for comment. Neither responded.
The slaughter of infants in Philadelphia should be on the front pages of every newspaper, at least as much as the Newtown shooting was. Just like Newtown and serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer, the Gosnell bloodbath is not a local story.
While no particular newspaper or columnist is obligated to cover every event, the lack of news coverage, commentary and calls for action across the breadth of the mainstream media regarding the murder of infants born alive after an abortion is startling.
We complain about mainstream media bias. That bias is not just what they write, but what they ignore.
Part of the legal insurrection is that readers have to demand the mainstream media cover events which are politically incorrect, such as the horror of late term abortion and the killing of infants born alive.
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Comments
The lack of coverage signifies something even more horrifying; that reporters (Left/Progressive) can’t see the basic problem with what Gosnell did. By all other actions the Left/Progressive ideologues demonstrate that they are more interested in Great Ideas than actual people, who are expendable as part of the progress toward A Better World.
How very Soviet of them.
Puppy mills get more coverage in Pennsylvania
They don’t cover homocide trials in other cities? George Zimmerman will appreciate their restraint, I’m sure.
Exactly. They think we are as stupid as they are.
Stop buying print newspapers that don’t print the news. I actually stopped (and I am an avid print reader) the ASBURY PARK Press because they had a racist black editor who called Tea Partiers “Old, fat, white racists” I wrote him a letter denouncing what he said. He didn’t think he said anything wrong. I cancelled, they kept calling giving me great deals, and I said “until they get rid of the editor who wrote those things, or he apologized” I did not want them to call me again. They haven’t…and I moved on.
I posted on their fb page that they must not have covered Jeffrey Dahmer, or the Aurora shootings, either. Oh wait—They Did!
Bear in mind…these were scores of “babies of color” predominantly.
Gosnell’s attorney has played the race card.
And the highest sacrament of the Collective is infanticide, right behind lying.
They can lie by omission, too…
OK, it’s a lightpost off to the left, in the Detroit Free Press article picture. Had to enlarge it. First thought was, the Grim Reaper standing there, on the left side.
I went to Planned Parenthood’s website to see what their reaction to Gosnell is. Apparently they haven’t bothered to have one. You could have knocked me over with a feather.
None of us, of course, need spend much time thinking about why. As again, as usual, the side that keeps telling us who open-minded they are, how receptive to different ideas is rigidly opposed to hearing any.
By the way, the great majority of American women oppose abortion on demand. My experience and observation has taught me to be wary of anyone who claims to speak for a larger group but clearly does not. They do not mean well.
Newspapers…I used to be a big newspaper buff. I cancelled the Detroit Free Press when it was struck. I always thought I’d go back to it after the strike was over. But at the time the only thing I actually wanted out of either of our local papers that I couldn’t find on-line was the Prince Valiant comic strip, and now I can get that. I got the daily NY Times, then I got the Sunday edition, and I finally figured out that I could read what was worth reading of that edition in a half hour or so at the library and for thirty cents I could copy the crossword and the acrostic.
I am waiting for one of my progressive FB friends to post something about some Republican saying something stupid about abortion and then politely ask, “What’s your take on the Kermit Gosnell situation?”
It is worth noting that when, as happens, albeit rarely, someone takes a pot shot at an abortion clinic, the act is swiftly condemned by the pro-life people. That no one on the left has even offered anything like, “Of course, this is a horrendous situation and we condemn it strongly, but it does not affect the overall issue” is telling.
I thought I was not very squeamish but I could not finish some of the articles.
I know what you mean. I understand the need for full coverage in reporting but reading these is worse than anything I think I’ve ever seen.
http://twitchy.com/2013/04/12/gosnell-wikipedia-entry-considered-for-deletion-a-local-multiple-murder-story-nothing-more/
Wikipedia considering? What a joke they are..
No surprise about Leonard Pitts–the guy’s a racist liberal hack (seriously–in almost every opinion piece of his that I’ve ever read [in the Freep, at least], he blames whitey for any and all problems) who’s so tied to his sense of embittered offense that he’d probably suspect anyone who wasn’t black of ulterior motives, should they do something nice for him personally.
Really, this reader ought to have emailed Nolan Finley, another opinion author who usually comes down more on the reasonable side of issues.
Along other lines, windbag and R Horsefeather have the right idea. It’s not like the Freep avoided covering, say, the OJ Simpson murder trial, even though that was a “local murder story” in California.
The question that really needs to be asked is…how many black children are murdered under the DNC platform?
Someone please teach the Detroit Free Press how to use Google.
Search: site:philly.com detroit murder trial
yields 13,600 entries, including:
http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/nation_world/20130319_ap_deliberationsresumeinmichgrandmastrial.html
Philadelphia Inquirer: “Mar 19, 2013 – Jurors in suburban Detroit have been given a computer so they can listen again to a critical 911 call as they deliberate in the trial of a 75-year-old woman … murder or a lesser charge, or acquit her on the basis of self-defense.”
There appear to be others, too.
And I couldn’t help but notice the Detroit Free Press’ (freep.com) intense coverage (392,000 references) of the murder trial for the shooter in the Aurora, CO movie theater.
The real issue is that the murders in the movie theater further their political agenda, but the murders in the abortion clinic undermine it. If the “doctor” in the abortion clinic had used a gun, it would have been a real crime.
yet they covered zimmerman, newton, and gannet company does anything it can to promote planned parenthood and gun control.
They cover stuff that promotes and advances Obama’s agenda: race, anti-2nd Amd, and abortion. They will not cover abortion when it makes Obama look like an unprincipled baby-killer.
Come to think of it, that is how we should refer to Obama from now on: baby-killing advocate Barack Obama.
Let us agree that hypocrisy in today’s media knows no boundries. We are officially in a fight for the moral foundation of our nation. Give these people no quarter.
Not that Mr. Pitts needs to be defended here (he’s articulate and can defend himself), but let me say one thing: if someone wrote me the letter that your unidentified reader wrote Mr. Pitts, I too would tell that reader to go to hell.
As would Prof. Jacobson. As would just about all of us in that situation.
Honey. Vinegar. There is a difference. Learn it.
If you want Mr. Pitts to cover something, start off being polite. And if Mr. Pitts emails to you to say, “who is Kermit Gosnell, I’ve never heard of him”, take that as an invitation to start a gentle conversation. Respond with the basic facts, a few links, and an observation about the effect abortion has had on the black community.
Perhaps Mr. Pitts would break off the conversation. Then you’d know. But right now Mr. Pitts has every reason as a hard-boiled journalist to say, “I don’t waste time responding to garbage attacks,” and few are going to fault him.
In other words, play the game. Honey, folks, honey.
“I too would tell that reader to go to hell.”
OK. Then the very NEXT thing I would do…because integrity demands it…is investigate the story.
If you want Mr. Pitts to cover something, start off being polite.
And that goes double if you think you might end up calling Mr. Pitts out publicly.
The media will always do their best to portray conservatives as truculent jerks. They don’t need our help with that.
The righteousness of a cause is no excuse for being politically stupid—and counterproductive—about advancing it.
I don’t believe Mr. Pitts told the reader to “go to Hell”. I think his response was the same as all liberal media. “Story not important because … oh shut up”. And your idea of “honey” and being so respectful worked so well for the Romney campaign. The media was so vigilant on those ads showing Romney a murderer, tax cheat/felon, and pet abuser. Accountability.
“Not that Mr. Pitts needs to be defended here (he’s articulate and can defend himself), but let me say one thing: if someone wrote me the letter that your unidentified reader wrote Mr. Pitts, I too would tell that reader to go to hell.”
You forgot to add that he’s clean with no detectable accent, too. Harry Reid would be VERY proud of you, Steve.
I hate to say it but it isn’t as if reporters are intentionally ignoring this story. The one who didn’t even know who Gosnell was comes pretty close to the norm.
For the average reporter, if it’s not in the New York Times (or maybe on CNN), it doesn’t exist. Seriously. That means most “journalists” aren’t ignoring the case. They really don’t know about it.
The same guy complained about being baited. That was a legitimate complaint. Real information would not have worked (because the bias still exists, even if it’s not operative in this case) but would have been a better approach than self-righteous teasing.
I hate to say it, but you may be partly right. Rush Limbaugh is always saying that the LSM take their news from the Old Gray Whore, aka NYT, and that if you miss the news on one channel you can get it on the other cuz they are all the same.
Other than that, it’s BS, and I hate to say that. Having been apprised of the story by various parties who have sought to draw it to the public’s attention, how can the LSM not know? All of them? Remember JournoList? Remember how they colluded on what the news should be and how they should approach it?
IMO, this non-coverage of the Gosnell story (why have the PA press not availed themselves of the seats set aside for the LSM in the court? Do the PA press need the OGW to tell them what is news in PA?) reeks of cover up. They are covering for the Democrats who are wholesale supporters of abortion. They are covering for Obama who sees nothing wrong with infanticide, bloody buggering Nazi.
If they write about Gosnell and condemn him for his slaughter of the innocents, then they would b condemning Obama who agrees with Gosnell that when a woman gets an abortion and the baby survives it, that baby should not be allowed to live because its life is contrary to the wishes of the female who sought to rid herself of it.
There is no way in hell the LSM will put Obama’s support of infanticide in the crosshairs.
It is that simple.
The Penn State Jerry Sandusky trial must not have been mentioned the the Detroit Free Press either.
To a person who pays big bucks to go to journalism school in order to save the world, you people are just a distraction.
No wonder the world hasn’t been saved yet. And even if it was saved, it would probably not be a local story so Brian Dickerson the Deputy Editorial Page Editor of the Detroit Free Press would see no need to cover it anyway.
My experience in contacting “journalists” with comments about their work was the same — they are arrogant and hateful. If this were about Michael Vick, page 1 above the fold. Journalists are people who choose their major in college by asking, “what can I major in that I dont have to take math or science?”
It has taken less than fifty years for this nation to lose its sense of morality and if there is a gawd, the retribution will be severe.
My gut feeling is that everything that offends us is not coming to a boiling point and we will all feel the wrath of equalization.
I had always thought that the defining moment would come after my passing but I’m starting to have other thoughts regarding this.
Remember, the pendulum is still swinging…
Yes. My feelings exactly. I used to fear for my grandkids. I now fear for all of us. It’s hard to stop a rolling boulder that is crashing it’s way downhill. The Constitution and our 237 years of history will be its casualty. And the sad truth is that the people who survive will never know what they lost.
Haha, you think you can demand the liberal-owned media cover stories detrimental to their cause. Um, no. They own the paper, not you.
[…] Detroit Free Press rebuffs reader demand to cover Gosnell butchery (legalinsurrection.com) […]
Has AP issued a directive yet that any “illegal abortion” will be entitled an “underdocumented perma-sleep”?
[…] can see why “they” don’t want to talk about it. And to have Detroit papers claim it to be a “local story” in Philly as justification not to cover it just […]
I live in the Detroit area and the Free Press is about as far left as any U.S. Newspaper. Brian Dickson has a long history as a hypocrite.
I suppose that Brian Dickson would use the same justification of it not being “Detroit news” for Newtown as well? Or perhaps, professional sports?
One thing that is true of Pitts and Dickson is that their last names describe them perfectly. And, Charles Blow of the NYT. These people are scam artists posing as reporters.
They are nothing if not vile, hateful wretches. The concept of mercy is lost on them.