(Photo Credit: The Media Research Center)
Media Research Center President L. Brent Bozell III ripped into CNN and network news outlets for referring to Center for Medical Progress undercover investigative videos of Planned Parenthood as "edited" or "heavily edited," calling them out for doing the exact same thing in their own footage.
Bozell’s statement:
The hypocrisy meter is going off the charts at CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS. In their reporting about the Planned Parenthood videos, they refer to them as 'edited' or 'heavily edited.' Well guess what? Each and every day these same TV news outlets edit and heavily edit their own news segments -- including their stories about the Planned Parenthood videos. Hours upon hours of footage is collected for every two to three minute segment they air, and the overwhelming amount of that footage hits the cutting room floor, never to see the light of day.
What are these networks not showing the American people? What are they cutting? Don't the American people have a right to see it? The difference between these networks and the Center for Medical Progress is that CMP is far more honest and transparent in disclosing the full footage and posting it online. These "news" networks have a responsibility to do the same. Today, I am calling on CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS to make public all the footage they collect for all of the news segments they produce, just as the Center for Medical Progress has done. Until they do, they have no right to question CMP's professionalism.
Bozell has a point. According to Newsbusters, as of Sept. 14, the mainstream media had played only 0.13% of the Center for Medical Progress' undercover videos showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of fetal tissue taken from babies aborted in their clinics. At that point, some the footage had already been released for two months.
What’s more, NBC, ABC and CBS all failed to mention the videos in their collective two minutes and 57 seconds of “coverage” of the House vote to defund Planned Parenthood earlier this month.
In fact, NBC Nightly News managed to crunch Tuesday’s five-hour congressional hearing over Planned Parenthood into a 64-second clip.
It’s not the first time the mainstream media has manipulated information to fit their narrative. In 2013, NBC was caught doctoring the audio from the George Zimmerman 911 call just before he famously shot and killed Trayvon Martin. The network was eventually forced to apologize after it was caught splicing and restructuring the audio to paint Zimmerman as a racist.
Or how about this time, when MSNBC slammed “white people” for “showing up with guns” to a health care rally. Unfortunately for MSNBC’s agenda, the guy who did show up armed was actually a pro-Second Amendment African American – although the network so heavily edited their footage of the event that no one could tell.
Or this time, when MSNBC was caught deceptively editing a phone interview with Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) during his run for Congress.
Of course, if you’re Brian Williams, you don’t bother with anything as bourgeois as manipulating footage – you just outright lie about it on NBC.
With facts like these, it’s no wonder 60 percent of Americans say they don't trust the media.