Last week, anti-Life media pundit Katie Couric gave Planned Parenthood some free advertising (billed as journalism) with an abortion mill tour in Queens, New York. The interview featured a sit-down with Planned Parenthood head honcho, Cecile Richards, who regurgitated the same old lies about Planned Parenthood being a necessary haven of health care to women all over the country (false).
The abortion mill was empty – and squeaky clean – during Couric’s visit, which purported to provide an insider peek at what an “abortion treatment room” (do the media never run out of ways to sanitize language relating to abortion?) “really” looks like.
Planned Parenthood staff made sure to show Couric the surgical table, ultrasound machine, and vitals monitoring equipment, assuring Couric that they “make sure everything is well” with the woman as she undergoes a surgical abortion. But staff conveniently left surgical abortion instruments and machines – precisely what differentiate an “abortion treatment room” from a gynecologist’s office – out of the camera’s scope.
Couric pummeled Planned Parenthood with questions that were about as hard-hitting as popcorn, reinforcing what we already knew: the mainstream media cannot be trusted to get out of bed with Planned Parenthood long enough to provide an objective look into their practices. Pro-Life writer Calvin Freiburger astutely notes that “[a]1992 profile of Katie Couric describes her as ‘tough if need be,’ capable of ‘killer interviews’ characterized by ‘blunt and direct’ questions and ‘not deterred by rhetoric or intimidated by titles.’” But this interview only serves to indicate that Couric falls in-line with the rest of her mainstream compatriots in silence about the true nature of Planned Parenthood’s internal operations and illegal activities.
Indeed, the media have refused to even air the investigative journalism footage provided to them by the Center for Medical Progress. Instead, mainstream journalists circumvent readily-available facts and footage in favor of carefully-crafted fiction. And they send these heavily-polished fluff pieces out regularly in assembly-line fashion. There is no doubt that Planned Parenthood has friends in high media places. Fortunately, Congress, state legislatures, and the American taxpayer are seeing through the rhetoric.