Topic: Media Research Center
The headline of Media Research Center writer Katie Yoder's Dec. 15 NewsBusters post screams "Nets CENSOR Planned Parenthood Disposing Aborted Babies in Landfills." She elucidates within:
A story of aborted baby bodies in landfills should be reporter-bait. But it’s not, at least to ABC, NBC and CBS.
After a statewide investigation, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced Friday that his office found no evidence that Ohio Planned Parenthood affiliates participated in the selling of aborted baby parts. Instead, his office argued it discovered something else: aborted babies thrown into landfills by Planned Parenthood.
To date, the three broadcast networks, ABC, NBC and CBS, have ignored the story during their morning and evening news shows.
Needless to say, there's a whole other side to this story that Yoder deliberately ignores -- the part in which nothing nefarious is happening.
As Vox explains, Yoder's claim about "aborted babies in landfills" is more accurately -- and less inflammatorily -- explained as Planned Parenthood disposing of medical tissue as it always has. Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio president Stephanie Kight said Ohio Planned Parenthood facilities have been regularly inspected for decades — ever since the Ohio code about "humane disposal" was first enacted in 1974 — and they've never been cited for their fetal tissue disposal procedures until now. The contractors Planned Parenthood uses to dispose of unneeded medical tissue follow procedures are specifically outlined in state law.
While Ohio law states that fetuses "shall be disposed of in a humane manner," Vox states, it does not define what "humane" means in this context, so there's nothing to back up DeWine's claim legally. According to Vox, DeWine says pending legislation will clarify that definition and require fetal remains to be cremated or buried, but he won't explain why Planned Parenthood's procedures are improper based on current law.
(Curiously, at no point does Yoder mention that DeWine is a "pro-life Republican," and thus is arguably using his state post to advance an agenda instead of properly and fairly enforcing the law.)
In short, Planned Parenthood is not breaking the law, and DeWine has effectively conceded that fact by saying he won't prosecute Planned Parenthood over the "humane" clause.
So, to clear things up for Yoder: The story hasn't been reported by the networks because there is no news to report -- Planned Parenthood following the law is not a newsworthy event. Unless Yoder considers DeWine's seeming abuse of his office to advance a political agenda to be news, which she probably doesn't since it's her agenda he's advancing.
Yoder concludes by whining that "Shining a bad light on Planned Parenthood doesn’t fit with the media’s agenda." Actually, "the media" treated this story responsibly; meanwhile, telling the entire, unbiased truth about Planned Parenthood certainly doesn't fit with Yoder's agenda.
