Kermit Gosnell

In likely the only time she'll ever publicly utter the name of convicted baby killer Kermit Gosnell, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow ended her self-imposed blackout of the abortionist's trial and told her viewers he'd been found guilty of murder.

Media coverage of Gosnell's two-month trial was "polarizing," Maddow sniffed, perturbed that so many lesser evolved beings remain unconvinced about the necessity or niceties of abortion on demand. (Video after page break)

ABC and NBC led their morning shows on Tuesday with nearly 10 minutes of "breaking news" coverage of Angelina Jolie's double mastectomy. This celebrity-driven story was apparently deemed more important than abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell being found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder, as Good Morning America and Today devoted just 38 seconds to the Gosnell trial. (audio clips of Jolie coverage available here; video below the jump)

Altogether, the ABC and NBC morning newscasts aired 19 minutes and 3 seconds of coverage on Jolie. Tuesday's CBS This Morning waited 12 minutes to cover the Hollywood news item, but ultimately ended up setting aside 7 minutes and 49 seconds of air time to the surgeries, versus a 18 second news brief on Gosnell. The total Big Three coverage of Jolie on Tuesday morning, including CBS's reporting, added up to 26 minutes and 52 seconds, as opposed to 56 seconds on the Gosnell case.

Former Gov. Tom Ridge (Pa.), a pro-choice Republican, was the key reason the horrors of Kermit Gosnell's Philadelphia abortion clinic went on undetected for so long, argued reporter J.D. Mullane in an interview with National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez published Tuesday morning at the magazine's website. Mullane, you may recall, is the Bucks County (Pa.) Courier Times news writer/columnist who has covered the Gosnell infanticide trial from day one, and who tweeted the now famous photo of the near-empty benches in the courthouse allotted for media coverage of the trial. [see below the page break]

Responding to Lopez's question, "How did Pennsylvania ever let this happen?" Mullane replied that the Keystone State's former governor "Tom Ridge, is, to me, Gosnell's chief enabler" [emphasis mine]:

It's been a busy week full of news stories highly damaging to liberals, from the damning testimony about Benghazi to revelations that the Obama IRS targeted the Tea Party to yesterday's conviction of Philadelphia abortionist and infanticidal maniac Kermit Gosnell.

So we at NewsBusters thought we'd show you how some conservative political cartoonists around the country were dealing with these developments in this week's edition of NB's ToonsDay:

“In Philadelphia today,” anchor Scott Pelley said on the May 13 CBS “Evening News,” there was a verdict in a murder trial that got national attention.” He was talking about the murder trial of Kermit Gosnell, and whatever “national attention” it received was given grudgingly by the media – including Pelley’s own network. 

In fact, it took 56 days, multiple letters from members of the House of Representatives and a public demand from conservative groups, before all three broadcast networks reported on Gosnell.

CNN gave more coverage to the Jodi Arias trial in one day than it did to the entire Kermit Gosnell trial over the span of eight weeks. NewsBusters already reported how the congressional hearings on the Benghazi attacks disappeared amidst CNN's incessant live coverage of tabloid crime stories.

When the verdict was reached in the Arias trial last Wednesday, CNN's coverage for the day totaled almost a whopping three hours. In contrast, the network gave just under 100 minutes to the Gosnell story in eight weeks since the trial began on March 18.

 Fifty six days after the grisly trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell began, ABC broke its self-imposed blackout and finally offered coverage. World News anchor Diane Sawyer belatedly told viewers that Gosnell was convicted on three counts of first degree murder against newborn babies, as well as on a slew of other charges. Terry Moran explained, "For two months, jurors heard often shocking, grisly testimony." He described the details as a "house of horrors." A house of horrors that ABC took 56 days to notice.

As the Media Research Center has aggressively documented, ABC went from March 18, 2013 (the trial's start) through Monday afternoon with no coverage. Yet during the same time, the network devoted a staggering 187 minutes (or 70 segments) to other shocking criminal cases, such as Jodi Arias and Amanda Knox.

The New York Times unsurprisingly stuck by its biased language on the abortion issue as it broke the news that a jury had found Philadelphia abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell guilty of three counts of first-degree murder on Monday. Jon Hurdle labeled the convicted murderer's victims "fetuses" in the second sentence of his article. Hurdle would go on to use the slanted term five more times in his write-up.

The correspondent later acknowledged that the prosecution had referred to the murder victims as babies, but only after using his "fetuses" label.

Jurors found abortionist Kermit Gosnell guilty on Monday of three first degree murder charges. In the eight weeks since the trial began, ABC has completely ignored the case, offering no coverage, discussion or mention of Gosnell and the gory details. It's not as though the network lacks interest in shocking criminal trials. In that same 56 day period, Good Morning America has devoted a staggering 187 minutes-- or 70 segments-- to sensational trials such as the Jodi Arias and Amanda Knox cases.

Over eight weeks, GMA featured Arias, who was convicted of slitting the throat of her ex-boyfriend, 38 times, more than 50 percent of the network's criminal trial coverage. Yet, World News, Nightline and GMA skipped Gosnell "snipping" the necks of newborn babies. Will ABC break the news blackout and cover the verdict?

During an interview with MRCTV, U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, asked what has become one of the most common questions across the country: Why won't the mainstream media give the murder trial of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell the coverage it deserves?

“We're talking about people being murdered,” she declared. Is the lack of attention “because we’re talking about poor women in minority neighborhoods, or is it because the media is trying to protect the abortion business?”

Ever since MSNBC finally chose to cover the murder trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell, the majority of MSNBC hosts have used the case as a disgusting opportunity to slam conservatives who want to regulate abortion clinics. Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough was the first MSNBCer to actually mention the case, expressing disgust and outrage over the abortionist's practices.

Today, which marks the 6th day since the jury entered deliberations, the network’s only other conservative, S.E. Cupp, finally used her daily platform to express similar outrage over the case involving Gosnell.  [See video after jump. MP3 audio here.] 

The drama surrounding the trial of Kermit Gosnell took another surprising turn on Monday, when Jack McMahon, the lawyer for the Philadelphia “abortion doctor,” charged that the Fox News Channel's hour-long documentary entitled “See No Evil -- The Kermit Gosnell Case” was an example of “irresponsible” journalism.

The attorney unleashed his verbal barrage on Monday morning, when he called the decision to air the program on Friday and Sunday evenings “shameful” and “outrageous” since the jury is still deliberating on the fate of the 72-year-old physician.

Despite being largely ignored by the national press, has the murder trial against Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell effected a permanent change on the debate over abortion? Yes, argues Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, one of several major pro-life groups. Now that the gruesome reality of partial birth abortions have been revealed in a court of law by the government itself, things will never be the same, Dannenfelser argues.

“It will be very difficult from here on out to talk about at least post-viability abortions without remembering those images and that there are two sets of rights involved here,” she told NewsBusters in a interview.

We here at NewsBusters have been documenting the virtual blackout of the Gosnell murder trial by the liberal media. As of May 6, the Big Three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) have offered scant if any coverage of the gruesome murder trial of Philadelphia abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell. 

In a May 3 special on the Kermit Gosnell case entitled “See No Evil” Fox News not only gave an in-depth and graphic account of the charges against Gosnell but also documented the broadcast media blackout of the case. Narrator Bret Baier introduced the segment by noting that:

Kirsten Powers at Daily Beast made a shocking comparison – legislatively speaking – concerning the Gosnell trial and the abortion rights movement in her column today.  They’ve become “the NRA of the left," the liberal but pro-life Democrat charges.

To her buddies on the Left, those are meant to be fighting words. There is no greater insult for liberals than to be compared to the National Rifle Association, the nation's oldest civil rights organization founded in 1871.

Does the outing of a previously almost unknown basketball player really deserve a half hour's coverage on a broadcast television Sunday political talk show?

The folks at CBS certainly felt it does as Face the Nation actually devoted the entire second half of its program Sunday to Jason Collins and gay issues.

NBC truly showed what its priorities are on Sunday's Meet the Press.

The outing of NBA player Jason Collins and the topic of same-sex marriage got a full 8 1/2 minutes while the murder trial of abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell received a whopping 2 1/2 minutes (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Washington Post media blogger Erik Wemple spends a lot of time picking apart Fox broadcasts, but he was stunned by a Thomas Roberts interview on MSNBC with the new leader of NARAL Pro-Choice America, Ilyse Hogue. She claimed “we were the first out of the gate to call attention to this case.” Like a news butler, Roberts set her up to make that bizarre claim and then moved on to the next publicist's softball.

Wemple shot back: “Having done precisely 3,454 Nexis and Internet search on the Gosnell case, we missed the part where NARAL had led a charge to highlight the alleged atrocities in West Philadelphia.” He kept searching, and NARAL’s new boss kept looking sillier and sillier:

Appearing on the May 2 Hannity program for the weekly “Media Mash” segment, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell noted that while the broadcast networks devoted considerable airtime in their news programming to courtroom sagas such as the murder trials of Amanda Knox and Jodi Arias or civil court proceedings like the Michael Jackson wrongful death lawsuit, they virtually ignored the trial of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell.

Gosnell is “a man who butchered babies” and the “details [of the story] are beyond gruesome” such as “babies floating in toilets, trying to swim to come out, while he put scissors in the back of their skulls,” the Media Research Center founder noted. And yet, because the underlying story involves abortion, the networks have censored the story, Bozell argued. [watch the full “Media Mash” segment below the page break]

Forty six days after the grisly trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell began, ABC still has not uttered one word about the case. Gosnell is charged with the murder of four infants and one patient, yet the network has conducted a total blackout. During the same period, ABC's Good Morning America has aired 53 segments and 148 minutes– almost two and a half hours– of coverage for other sensational criminal trials.

Although GMA hasn't found time to discuss the shocking details of the Gosnell case, the morning program on Thursday did tout the story of two rival Sno-Kone truck operators in upstate New York, the deeply irrelevant criminal complaints of "Sno Kone Joe vs. Mr. Ding-A-Ling." [See a picture below.] The other networks have given the Gosnell story minimal coverage, but ABC is alone in completely ignoring it.

Last night, NBC Nightly News deliberately censored the grisly details of abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s alleged crimes. Claiming that they’re "too gruesome" to be discussed on television is absolute nonsense. NBC News covered the Casey Anthony child murder trial 12 times on Nightly News in 2011, including multiple graphic descriptions of that crime. If they can talk about Caylee Anthony’s body decomposing in the trunk of a car, they can talk about Gosnell "snipping" spinal cords to kill babies born alive.

The difference is that the details of this murder trial raise serious questions about abortion, the liberal media’s most sacred cow.

For the second time in a regular news story, PBS mentioned the trial of Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell on Tuesday’s NewsHour. And yet Gosnell was not the subject of the story in question. The mention came at the tail end of a piece on the battle over abortion restrictions in state legislatures.

Anchor Jeffrey Brown presented the trial as the concern of “anti-abortion activists”: [Video below. MP3 audio here.]

On Wednesday, NBC Nightly News covered the Dr. Kermit Gosnell case for the very first time, a whopping 44 days after the opening of the trial, and only after the jury had finished its first full day of deliberations. Stephanie Gosk wasted little time before emphasizing that Gosnell's clinic was "one of the only places in this low-income neighborhood in Philadelphia where pregnant woman could afford to go for abortions" [audio available here; video below the jump].

Gosk's report was also the first time that Big Three aired a report on the trial on its evening newscasts, even as ABC and CBS's evening newscasts continued their blackout. Previously, the only time that a NBC journalist mentioned the murder case on-air was when Savannah Guthrie asked President Obama if he had been "watching the Gosnell trial....and do you think it animates a larger debate about abortion in this country" on the April17, 2013 edition of Today.

The New York Times's Trip Gabriel reported Tuesday that each side has rested its case in the trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell, on trial for four charges of infanticide at his Philadelphia clinic. The first paragraph is revealing:

“They are known as Baby Boy A, Baby C, Baby D and Baby E, all of whom prosecutors call murdered children and the defense calls aborted fetuses -- the very difference in language encapsulating why anti-abortion advocates are so passionate about drawing attention to the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, which wrapped up here on Monday with summations by both sides.”

Back in the mid-1990s I went to a public forum in Boston to hear ex-adman Earl Shorris talk about his new book, "A Nation of Salesmen: The Tyranny of the Market and the Subversion of Culture."

In one of his many anecdotes on working in advertising, Shorris told of being hired by Nestle after it was discovered that one of their infant formulas was sickening and killing newborns in Africa. What should we do, a nervous Nestle's exec asked Shorris. "Stop killing babies," he suggested. For this Shorris was dubbed the "conscience of the company." (Video after page break)

In just 24 hours, CNN spent over 76 minutes of air time on NBA player Jason Collins's announcement that he was gay. That was over nine times more coverage the network gave the Gosnell trial in one week.

CNN's media critic Howard Kurtz admitted on Sunday that the media champion some stories more than others that also merit attention, and this was painfully evident in the amount of time network gave the two stories. Once Collins announced he was gay, the network breathlessly touted the news as "historic," "a big moment for our country," and "courageous." CNN's jubilation over Collins is no surprise given its support for same-sex marriage, but it couldn't muster even half of that air time to report the alleged horrors of Kermit Gosnell's abortion clinic. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

While polling data show that public trust of the news media is in the single digits, the real salient issue in media bias these days is bias by omission, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Dennis Miller in an April 30 interview for the comedian's podcast program.  It's what the media refuse to report on, censoring stories from public view, that helps to shield liberals from scrutiny on salient public policy issues.

"For example, the Gosnell story. The average person out there has no idea what I'm talking about when I say Gosnell," Bozell noted of the Philadelphia abortionist who allegedly killed babies who survived attempted abortions. "You don't have to be pro-life to be disgusted and feel like throwing up when you hear some of these details and yet, no coverage from the national media." [To download and listen to the full interview, click here; For information on how to subscribe to Miller's podcast, click here ]

ABC's blackout of the gruesome charges against abortionist Kermit Gosnell continued on Tuesday, 43 days after the trial began. This came one day after a Media Research Center study found that the network's Good Morning America has devoted 109 minutes and 41 stories to other shocking criminal trials. Apparently, ABC's disinterest extends only to cases that might put the pro-abortion agenda in a negative light.

Instead of covering the Gosnell trial, which went to the jury on Monday, GMA offered a full report on the Michael Jackson wrongful death case, another story on the case of a Utah doctor charged with murdering his wife and a third segment on the Amanda Knox retrial. This amounted to another eight minutes and 20 seconds of focusing on high profile court stories not involving an abortionist accused of murdering babies.

One of NPR's top member stations, WHYY in Philadelphia, home of conservative-trashing "Fresh Air" host  Terry Gross, houses a large local news operation. That news operation includes the heavily taxpayer-subsidized Newsworks, which produces a daily 30-minute local newscast for WHYY, Newsworks Tonight.

On Friday’s Newsworks Tonight, Taunya English, health and science reporter for WHYY and Newsworks, actually said this of a man accused of snipping the spinal cords of babies born alive while joking about them, keeping gruesome souvenirs of the babies, and having women give birth to babies in toilets: “a physician who had worked in our community for 30 years, cared for women in all of that time." Contrast this with Newsworks’ headline about the hanging of an elephant 97 years ago in Tennessee: “Horrific case of animal cruelty basis for PIFA's 'Murderous Mary' play.”