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  • 2019-10-03 (xsd:date)
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  • Did Mainstream Media Outlets 'Refuse' to Cover Abortion Doctor Ulrich Klopfer? (en)
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  • On Sept. 25, 2019, the website Life News published an article claiming that ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, NPR, and PBS had all refused to cover the grisly discovery of over 2,000 preserved fetuses found in the Illinois garage of deceased abortion doctor Ulrich Klopfer: In a tweet promoting the article, Life News also claimed that these outlets haven't run a single word about the abortionist and then added: Shame on you for censoring the truth about the brutality of abortion. These outlets are not censoring this story, nor did they refuse to cover it. In reality, ABC, NBC, NPR, CBS Chicago, and WTTW (Chicago's PBS station) have all published stories about this disturbing discovery: We found no mention of this story, however, on MSNBC.com or CBSnews.com. The Life News article, which was originally published on Newsbusters under the less sensational title Bozell & Graham Column: Abortion Horrors Buried by the Press, is attempting to comment on the fact that the story of Klopfer received little attention on national television news broadcasts. And that is true. We searched for mentions of Klopfer on TV Eyes and, as of Oct. 3, 2019, found the vast majority of coverage on this case came from local news outlets. However, Life News' coverage of this critique is severely misleading. The website claimed that these outlets were refusing to cover this story, attempting to censor the truth, and that they had failed to run a single word about the abortionist. But, as one can see above, that isn't the case. Many of the aforementioned outlets did provide coverage of this story, even if it was only on their websites. If ABC, NBC, or NPR were truly trying to censor the truth about this abortionist, they probably wouldn't publish news stories about it on their sites. It should also be noted that Life News' claim that these outlets refused to cover this story is based on little more than an absence of broadcast coverage. Life News provides no evidence (and makes no attempt to do so) to show that anyone in charge of the networks actively forbade reporters from covering the story. Simply not covering a story, of course, is not the same as refusing to cover a story. News outlets, especially newspapers with limited space and television news outlets with limited airtime, continuously make decisions about which stories to cover in order to best serve their audiences. PBS News points to five criteria that journalists consider when determining if a story is newsworthy: Timeliness, proximity, conflict and controversy, human interest, and relevance. As this discovery was made in Illinois and involved a doctor who performed abortions in Indiana, this story has received a lot of local news coverage from outlets in these states. National news outlets, however, have to serve a national audience and decide what to cover from a wider pool of reporting. The fact that this story did not make it to prime time national television doesn't necessarily mean these outlets refused to cover it, just that other stories were deemed more worthy of airtime. While Life News may have a point when it argues this story deserved more national coverage, claiming these outlets refused to cover the story, wanted to censor the truth, and failed to run a single word about the abortionist, is simply untrue, as evidenced by the fact that many of these outlets published web articles about Klopfer. (en)
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