Thousands of pro-life Catholics are understandably outraged at the media blackout surrounding the trial of Kermit Gosnell, the perpetrator of the Philadelphia abortion clinic horrors.
This photo is making the rounds this morning — it shows the empty seats that are reserved for media during the trial. This is what a media blackout looks like:
The most searched term on Politico right now is “kermit gosnell” — and that search yields no results. Kirsten Powers writes:
“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.”
When one of the intrepid bloggers at Get Religion asked a Washington Post reporter who had intensely covered stories such as the Komen Foundation temporarily suspending its funding of Planned Parenthood why she wasn’t covering Gosnell, the reporter replied (seriously): “I cover policy … not local crime.”
That’s baloney, to put it politely.
I support the efforts of (now over 4,000) online activists to Break the Gosnell Media Blackout by tweeting updates with the hashtag #Gosnell from 12pm-12am today.
But let’s remember — we don’t have to be held hostage by the media. WE HAVE OUR OWN MEDIA. Each one of you reading this has access to email, Facebook and Twitter. So let’s use this as an opportunity to get more in the habit of informing our friends and family on topics the media ignores or distorts.
A couple months ago I taped a short video for the PIE Project (an initiative you should check out!) explaining how we can share the pro-life message online:
So, don’t wait for the media to cover stories like the Gosnell trial — do it yourself!
UPDATE — case in point, I tweeted the photo of the empty media seats and an hour later over 80 of you had re-tweeted it. All of us need to speak up: