Planned Parenthood hoax shows why it’s important not to let right wingers neg journalists

[UCmeNdc]

So, Live Action, er, the Center for Medical Progress, put another video out that they claim reveals “shocking” information about Planned Parenthood but actually reveals that Planned Parenthood offers legal abortion and donates, legally, to medical researchers who are developing life-saving technologies from the donated tissues. This time, the media response was more cautious and subdued, having realized that the first video was a hoax and therefore this one almost surely was as well. (It is.) I was happy about the mainstream media learning not to be taken in by right wing hoaxes, and expressed this on Twitter:


Twitchy, which is a site created, as far as I can tell, simply to fling pea-brained assholes at people they have picked as hate objects, decided to put their own spin on this:

twitchy

The answer to their question is no.

The media’s job is to report news, not to be a conduit for falsehoods propagated by right wing liars whose ultimate goal is to shut down affordable reproductive health services for women in need. There is no good argument for why the media should propagate right wing lies. The first duty of journalism is to the truth. If Malkin and crew think that adherence to the truth is “bias”, so be it. Most of us just consider that basic morality.



http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/planned-parenthood-hoax-shows-why-its-important-not-to-let-right-wingers-neg-journalists/

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. K&R and off to the Greatest Page for you! Richly deserved. n/t

[Cleita]

2. So what's the answer? It seems like anything can pass for media these days as long

as they have the corporate structure, capital and journalist sell outs to put stuff out there. Maybe journalists should be licensed like lawyers or architects. I really don't have an answer, but what we have now isn't working.

[bobclark86]

3. The bloggers, Wikileaks, et al, will go to jail under your proposal...

You CAN'T license journalists, as it would infringe on the free speech rights of those not licensed.

The same thing guaranteeing a "real" journalist's right to do their job is the same thing that allows Hustler to make parody ads of preachers getting drunk; allows a blogger to dig around to find government inpropriety in the War on Terror; and allows people to buy websites to operate as message boards for like-minded individuals (cough, DU, cough).

Limit one, you limit them all.

Personally, I like it that way. I revel in ignoring the morons if it means I can find the truth. Far better than having neither.

[Cleita]

5. I see your point better than you might think, which is why I said I don't know the answer.

However, there is a systemic effort by the powerful to shut up those journalists who won't put out their propaganda so it has the same effect. So institutions like Planned Parenthood and previously Acorn, which was shut down by lying propaganda, are unfairly targeted by "journalists" who really are nothing more than trolls, but those who have the truth are shut out of the mainstream forced to the edge venues and blogs which the MSM characteristic label as fringe. It seems like you can't beat them.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

4. Simple. Don't talk to journalists if you don't know them.

And don't let them buy wine during the interview. That won't end well.