The media everywhere can’t—or won’t—report assisted suicide-related stories accurately. Example: Most stories still report that Jack Kevorkian assisted the suicides of the terminally ill when 70 percent or so of his victims were not terminally ill and five had no illnesses upon their autopsies.
The same thing happens in Australia. In August 2001, I traveled to Australia to bust Philip Nitschke for arguing that “troubled teens” should have access to assisted suicide. It created a national media firestorm with television reporters chasing me down for interviews at restaurants. At first, he admitted it: After all, he had said that explicitly in an interview with Kathryn Jean Lopez over at NRO. Then, he turned on a dime and denied it: Rather than point out his different stories, the media simply pretended his lie settled the matter despite the evidence to the contrary in black and white.
Now, an Adelaide paper says—in shocked tones—that Nitschke no longer believes in limiting assisted suicide to the terminally ill. From the story:
PHILIP Nitschke says he no longer believes voluntary euthanasia should only be available to the terminally ill, but that elderly people afraid of getting old and incapacitated should also have a choice.
Good grief, he never did believe that it should only be available to the terminally ill! Never. Why is that so hard to report? How can we believe anything the media report when they can’t even report basic and uncontroversial facts correctly?
My head hurts.
