Topic: Media Research Center
Sarah Knoploh embraces the Depiction-Equals-Approval Fallacy in a Feb. 26 MRC Culture and Media Institute item, claiming that a Washington Post article on a Minnesota abortion provider who travels to South Dakota to perform abortions "not only turned Ball into a hero, but sympathized with her 'difficult' situation." Knoploh also stated that the Post "quoted the clinic director, sympathizing further with the pro-abortion side of South Dakota’s controversy."
That's right -- Knoploh is asserting that a news outlet merely quoting someone means that said outlet endorses whatever that person has to say.
Knoploh insisted the article shows that "Pushing a liberal pro-abortion agenda is nothing new for the Post"; one of the examples she provides is of the post "featur[ing] a medical student’s opinions about why she supported abortion in June 2009." A total of three stories over two years were cited, but Knoploh offers no explanation of how three stories over two years equate to compelling evidence of a "pro-abortion agenda."
Knoploh also demonstrated the right wing's continuing obsession with slain abortion doctor George Tiller, complaining that, in insisting ath that "Other mainstream media outlets have pushed the same ["pro-abortion"] agenda," that TV networks "only referred to Tiller’s death as deadly, while ignoring the violent nature of abortions." You may recall that Knoploh and her fellow CMI writer Colleen Raezler effectively condoned Tiller's murder by complaining that news outlets failed to "help their audience understand why this man was targeted."
