Associated Press refuses to use 'abortion' tag to describe baby-killing abortion murderer

Friday, April 19, 2013 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: abortion, Gosnell trial, Associated Press

(NaturalNews) When is murder not murder? Apparently whenever the mainstream media (MSM) says it isn't.

Enter the case of abortion "doctor" Kermit Gosnell. Now, the heads of politburo at The Associated Press, one of the world's largest newswire services, have decided their reporters won't use the term "abortion" to describe the procedures that Gosnell was performing, even though that's what they were - that is, until he started murdering live babies.

Gosnell, who's currently on trial in Philadelphia for killing at least seven babies who were born alive following botched abortion procedures, is accused of stabbing them in the base of their skulls with a sharp scissors and "clipping' their spines. If there is a more barbaric way to intentionally kill the most defenseless member of our society - a newborn baby - I am at a loss to think of it at the moment.

What about the story tags? Where's "abortion" when you need it?

But to the AP, which at least has covered the story, abortion is too strong a word to use, which is actually smoke-and-mirrors, since the trial is not about abortion, per se, but about murder. Maybe the AP will ban that word next in coverage of this trial. From the Media Research Center:

In online journalism, blogs and related endeavors, a "tag" is a "keyword or term" which "helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching." At the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, it appears that "tag" has been redefined as "a keyword or term selectively used to ensure that only certain items will come in in future searches."

Let's take a look at the "Big Story" report posted at the AP's national site on March 19 relating to the trial of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell. In that story by Maryclaire Dale, who is still on the story even after proving on March 25 that she has no business being there as an objective observer when she described Gosnell as "an elegant man" who "smiled softly" in court, the wire service applied the following tags: North America, United States, General news, Crime, Legal proceedings, Law and order, Violent crime, Homicide, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Health, Asia, South Asia, Women's health, Infanticide, Kermit Gosnell, Bhutan

Bhutan is the country of origin of one of Gosnell's alleged victims, though it appears only in a few stories. But what's the one glaring omission?

The word abortion.

Now granted, the AP has applied the term "abortion" as a tag in the past, but it would seem imminently appropriate to do so for the biggest abortion story of the millennium thus far, wouldn't it? In each and every story about Gosnell?

"The AP does employ 'abortion' as a tag. But from all appearances, it just hasn't applied it to any of its stories about Gosnell. Instead, it has reserved the tag for its 'Big Stories' ... by using the tag's URL (http://bigstory.ap.org/tags/abortion)," the MRC's Newsbusters.org reported.

Look, the coverage is skewed, period

Going back to June 2012, about 50 of these stories have some things in common:

-- None are abortion-related stories, save one: A positive story about how "A new clinic offering abortions and other women's medical services saw its first patient Thursday in the Wichita building where a slain Kansas abortion provider had practiced." That "provider," George Tiller, was killed in 2009 by a disturbed man who had no involvement with the mainstream pro-life movement.

-- Stories that detail legislative developments that get the "abortion" tag are far more likely to be about efforts to curb the practice and to reduce funding for abortion mill Planned Parenthood (which operates annually with scores of millions in taxpayer funding).

-- Most stories related to political campaigns, such as those about the contrasting opinions of President Obama and Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign.

These are all clever little "tricks" the MSM uses to obfuscate, hide or otherwise muddle "coverage" of issues deemed "politically incorrect." That's not what a responsible media does in a free society; our founders made a free press so it could exist as a bulwark against tyranny and as the people's advocate against intrusive, abusive government.

Clearly those principles are not in play in the trial of Kermit Gosnell, killer of born children.

Sources for this article include:

http://newsbusters.org

http://bigstory.ap.org

http://www.foxnews.com