Media’s Gosnell reputation isn’t going to fix itself

Last updated on: April 18, 2013 at 10:23 am By mollie

Days after my quest for answers about why the media downplayed abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell’s abortion trial went viral, we have seen approximately eleventy billion media analysis pieces about the coverage. Many folks have written mea culpas copping to pro-choice bias, ignorance, or other journalistic failures. Some folks have tried claiming that the coverage was really there, usually pointing to either 2011 or the day the trial began (a curious approach, given what we know about the time-space continuum). Others... Read more

Mysterious deluge of unreported Catholics

Last updated on: April 17, 2013 at 3:56 pm By mollie

I’m on a few of those neighborhood list-servs. One of them is for area parents. One of the members is a local reporter and she asks for interviews with folks for various stories she’s working on. Well, one of her recent stories was related to the Newtown massacre. Had any parents, she wanted to know, removed toy guns from their home in response to the Sandy Hook massacre? Some time later, she asked again. And again. One mother responded that... Read more

On Sarah Kliff’s mea culpa on Gosnell (a national story)

Last updated on: April 17, 2013 at 3:57 pm By tmatt

If you have been on Twitter in the past week or so, you probably know that our own M.Z. Hemingway recently wrote a post that noted: … Since tmatt has me reading the Washington Post every day, to look at how the paper’s health policy reporter was covering Gosnell. I have critiqued many of her stories on the Susan G. Komen Foundation (she wrote quite a bit about that) and the Sandra Fluke controversy (she wrote quite a bit about... Read more

Out front: the stigma of mental illness

Last updated on: April 16, 2013 at 5:38 pm By Bobby Ross Jr.

In 2011, I traveled to rural Oregon to report on a minister who helped bring healing to his small town after a string of suicides. As part of that Christian Chronicle story, I noted that 35,000 Americans died by suicide in the most recent year for which statistics were available: Victims range from teenagers harassed at school to military veterans suffering war trauma to elderly people facing a debilitating illness or loss of a spouse. However, the Suicide Prevention Resource... Read more

Vote! Which is the worst Gosnell lede?

Last updated on: April 16, 2013 at 1:52 pm By mollie

A few positive thoughts before we look at coverage of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell’s trial. (1) I can not begin to thank you for all the kind words and support you’ve sent my way, publicly and privately, during this time. It is appreciated and it helps. Yes, I took some heat, which is to be expected. But the kind words of support, ranging from embarrassingly effusive to constructive advice, were wonderful to receive. A thousand thank yous. (2) I joked... Read more

Let us attend: Waiting for a religion shoe to drop in Boston

Last updated on: April 16, 2013 at 10:28 am By tmatt

As you would expect, people were a bit tense last night on my commuter train from Union Station in Washington, D.C., back to Baltimore. If anyone was talking, they were talking about the Boston Marathon explosions and the other unexploded bombs found in that tense area. Of course, police were everywhere near the U.S. Capitol. That was to be expected. And there was another element of the scene that was to be expected. I didn’t hear anyone express the slightest... Read more

Unforced Episcopal errors from the Wall Street Journal

Last updated on: April 15, 2013 at 8:41 pm By geoconger

Even the best newspapers will drop a brick now and again. And today’s piece in the Wall Street Journal about the Episcopal wars in South Carolina is a real stinker. I’ve been reading the Journal since the early 1980s when I went to New York to work as a floor clerk at the Commodities Exchange for Drexel Burnham Lambert. In those far off misty days of my misspent youth (the lark’s on the wing, the snail’s on the thorn, Reagan’s... Read more

WPost demonstrates how not to respond to Gosnell critiques, again

Last updated on: April 15, 2013 at 2:08 pm By mollie

It’s like drinking water from a fire hose. That’s what processing all of the information coming out right now about either the trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell or the problems with the media coverage of same is like. I have 600+ emails in my inbox to open and they keep coming. Many want to just talk about the media coverage but some are from reporters asking for help covering the story. It’s very good news that reporters and editors are... Read more

M-O-D-E-S-T: A key word for Annette the Catholic

Last updated on: April 15, 2013 at 1:01 pm By tmatt

As you would expect in a world that remains obsessed with all things Baby Boomer, the death of the ultimate Mouseketeer — that would be the always lovely Annette Funicello — drew quite a bit of mainstream media attention. It would be easy to sum up most of the coverage, since the themes were so cookie-cutter consistent, but the two reports that ran online and in print at The Washington Post will do. The key to the stories was capturing... Read more

Pod People: Media wake up to Gosnell failures

Last updated on: April 14, 2013 at 6:41 pm By mollie

GetReligion’s critique of media coverage of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell’s trial has received quite a bit of attention in recent days. I’m glad, since we’ve been aware of the problem with media coverage of this topic since early 2011. My post from January of that year, “8 Murders in Philadelphia,” shows the history of problems in coverage. We looked at many abortion-related stories since that time, but they were, naturally, in the area that the media took the most interest... Read more