Many pro-lifers have noted mainstream news outlets’ refusal to cover the ongoing trial of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell. Today, that observation made USA Today ’s op-ed page, as Kirsten Powers writes :
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.
She’s absolutely right, of course. But the solution for pro-life activists is not merely to complain about lack of coverage, or to share what little coverage there is, or to establish their own media outlets, however necessary all those things are. The solution is to get a job (or encourage your kids or your students to get a job) inside the mainstream media.
To be sure, working for a mainstream outlet comes with many constraints: You’ll probably be a reporter or editor rather than a columnist or editorial writer, meaning that you will not have complete independence in what topics you cover. You may be uncomfortable sharing your views with colleagues, given that journalists are more liberal than the average American.
And if you were writing a news story about abortion for a mainstream outlet, you would not be able to state forthrightly “abortion is evil.” But if there’s no pro-life journalist in the newsroom to argue that some under-reported event—-the March for Life, the Kermit Gosnell trial, whatever—-deserves coverage, there may not be a story at all.
