Topic: CNSNews.com
We've detailed how the Media Research Center has been haranguing other media outlets to cover the trial of Kermit Gosnell while not sending its own reporter to cover the trial until weeks after it began. But it appears the one day a reporter from the MRC-operated CNSNews.com attended the trial may be the only day an MRC employee was there.
Gosnell's trial began in Philadelphia on March 18. MRC writer Matt Philbin indicated to ConWebWatch that the first day an MRC attended the trial in person was April 17, as described in an April MRC Culture & Media Center item. That day, a CNS article by Elizabeth Harrington ablout the trial carried a Philadelphia dateline, an indicator that she was there.
But Harrington had not covered the Gosnell trial before that article, and all of her subsequent articles on the trial (including two published on April 18) carry no datelines, which indicates that she is apparently covering the trial from the MRC's offices in Alexandria, Va., not from Phihladelphia.
Indeed, Harrington managed to find time away from her Gosnell coverage to write up an April 23 article complaining that the government "is spending $152,000 to study 'voice therapy' for transgenders." That follows in Harrington's obsession with portraying the government as wasting money to benefit gays.
You'd think that an organization with a $12 million budget could afford to send someone to drive 2 1/2 hours away, give them a laptop and put them up in a motel room to cover a trial that it has deem so important. But apparently not.
On top of being cheap, it's hypocritical. The MRC has been screaming that the Gosnell trial is so important that it demands national coverage, but it couldn't be bothered to send its own reporter to cover it in person for more day? Puh-leeze.
The MRC did not respond to a query from ConWebWatch about how many days an MRC employee covered the Gosnell trial in Philadelphia.
UPDATE: Harrington has responded, saying that she has been covering the trial from Philadelphia since April 17.
