DC Trawler

Yes, Kermit Gosnell does exist

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Again and again, our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters in the media find themselves being shamed into covering a big news story they don’t want sullying their uncalloused hands. They’ve been forced to talk about Rielle Hunter, Van Jones, Anthony Weiner, Jeremiah Wright, and all the other unpleasant, inconvenient stories that fall into the category Mickey Kaus has dubbed “undernews.” Those damn wingnut bloggers keep scooping them. And these gatekeepers, these guardians of truth, always spend a little time whining and mewling about it. They try to justify and/or deny their own silence.

That’s where we are right now with the story of Philadelphia abortionist and alleged mass-murderer Kermit Gosnell.

For example, here’s CNN’s Howard Kurtz yesterday (courtesy of Noel Sheppard):

“Okay, okay, so we stink. But you wingnuts didn’t do our jobs for us either!”

And notice that Kurtz refers to these murder victims as “fetuses.” Several other media outlets have made the same error, intentionally or not. They weren’t fetuses. They were babies. But apparently, a lot of media folks think a human being is a fetus until it’s old enough to run away from the guy who’s trying to kill it.

Here’s Margaret Sullivan, “public editor” for the New York Times, mildly dismissing the idea that a story on page A17 at the start of the trial (which also calls the victims “fetuses”) is insufficient coverage:

Hey, whaddaya gonna do? The NYT has more important stories to cover, like how you’re killing the planet by throwing away your old TV.

It’s not a media blackout, you ignorant teabaggers. It’s a media brownout. The trick is to cover an inconvenient news story just enough that they can point to it later (“See? See??“), but not so much that people actually find out about it.

All of which leads us to this: Snopes.com confirms that Kermit Gosnell is real.

Note to Howard Kurtz, Margaret Sullivan, and all you other “media watchdogs”: If you were doing your jobs, nobody would be asking anything like this. I don’t see Snopes verifying the existence of Adam Lanza.

(Hat tip: James Taranto)

Update: Battle waged over proposed deletion of disgraced abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell’s Wikipedia page. And why does someone want to delete it? Because the news hasn’t been covering his trial. It’s just a “local multiple-murder story in Pennsylvania.” Well, all crimes are local stories until the news trucks pull up. Just ask George Zimmerman.

Update:

Update: More excuses.

Update: Mollie Hemingway tried to get a WaPo “health policy reporter” named Sarah Kliff to explain why Gosnell isn’t an important story. Kliff was every bit as honest and transparent as you’d expect.

Update: What’s the difference between a baby and a fetus?