More than a dozen reporters who have covered the Planned Parenthood fetal tissue scandal have declined to say whether they have watched all of the undercover footage released by the activist group responsible for bringing the controversial practice to light.
These same journalists, some of them writing for the largest newsrooms in the United States, including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN and the Associated Press, have repeated the claim that the videos have been selectively edited.
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The Center for Medical Progress, a pro-life activist group, released 10 short videos this year showing Planned Parenthood affiliates discussing reimbursement for procuring organs salvaged from the remains of aborted children. The videos come after a nearly three-year-long investigation organized by the group’s founder, David Daleiden.
CMP has also released more than 10 hours of raw, uncut footage, as well as audio transcripts and several lengthy mini-documentaries.
Planned Parenthood maintains that the tapes have been doctored so as to give the impression that it is engaged in unethical and likely illegal behavior.
Some reporters have responded to the scandal by giving Planned Parenthood a platform to accuse CMP of spreading misinformation, while others have said themselves that the tapes are intentionally misleading.
None have said whether they’ve watched all of the available footage.
The Washington Post, the Associated Press and the New York Times, for example, have allowed Planned Parenthood to denounce the videos repeatedly as anti-abortion propaganda.
Others in the press have taken it a step further.
The videos have been “selectively edited,” reported Mother Jones’ Molly Redden.
The L.A. Times’ Michael Hiltzik wrote that the tapes have been, “conclusively discredited as heavily edited misrepresentations.”
Mic’s Gregory Kreig said CMP had released, “secretly recorded and selectively edited videos.” And for Salon’s Sohpia Tesfaye, the videos are “heavily” and “deceptively” edited.
Though they repeat the claim that the video are intentionally misleading, none of the 15 journalists contacted this week by the Washington Examiner’s media desk would say if they’ve actually watched all of the released footage, and only one responded directly to inquiries.
The Huffington Post’s Samantha Lachman, who specifically referred to the tapes as “selectively edited,” would not say whether she had watched all of the available material. She instead directed the Examiner’s attention to a Planned Parenthood-commissioned study claiming the videos have been deceptively doctored.
That study, which was done by the research firm Fusion GPS, also said that CMP’s audio transcripts were incomplete.
The commissioned analysis did not address questions surrounding one CMP video showing Deborah Nucatola, who has served as Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services since 2009, discussing “doing a little better than” breaking even for donated organs. The commissioned study, which focused on only four of the ten CMP videos, also failed to address footage showing Planned Parenthood affiliates seemingly discussing performing partial birth abortions so as to keep specific organs intact.
It is illegal to profit from the donation of fetal tissue. It is also illegal under federal law to perform partial birth abortions.
The Examiner asked Lachman a second time whether she had watched all of the CMP footage.
She did not respond.
Two Washington Post reporters also declined to say whether they’ve watched every tape released by CMP, and instead referred the Examiner to the newspaper’s spokeswoman.
Post spokeswoman Kris Coratti defended reporters Sandhya Somashekhar and Abby Ohlheiser and their coverage of the scandal by telling the Examiner, “The fact is, in their extensive coverage of this issue, they made repeated reference to both the edited and longer footage posted by the Center for Medical Progress. In addition, they reported on exchanges captured in the longer videos that did not make the shorter cut.”
Other journalists who have repeated that the tapes have been deceptively edited, including Fusion’s Katie McDonough, the New York Times’ Jackie Calmes, Vox.com’s Sarah Kliff, Salon’s Sophia Tesfaye, Mic’s Greg Krieg, the Week contributor Paul Waldman, the Los Angeles Times’ Michael Hiltzik and CNN’s Drew Griffin, declined to comment.
The CMP videos have sparked multiple investigations by Congress, and several states have moved to defund the women’s health group. Planned Parenthood’s go-to defense in all that time has been to claim that the CMP videos have been grossly doctored.
“We know that the videos Mr. Daleiden has released were deceptively edited to smear Planned Parenthood. They omit exculpatory passages and splice excerpts together to create false impressions,” the group’s president, Cecile Richards, said in an August letter addressed to Congress.
“Our analysis of the videos released by Mr. Daledien documents numerous instances where the videos have been heavily edited to change the meaning of what Planned Parenthood staff said and deceive the public,” she added, referring to Fusion GPS’ commissioned study.
