After two years of almost total silence, suddenly it seems the media has decided the Kermit Gosnell story will not go uncovered for another day. Here, in a few words, is what the media landscape looks like today:
Kermit Gosnell is probably the most successful serial killer in the history of the world.
— Terry Moran (@TerryMoran) April 12, 2013
And that’s far from all. Today we have some really well done stories like this one from Conor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic, arguing persuasively that there are all sorts of angles that should be covered here, including policy angles related to abortion. I’m going to block quote this because it’s just so good:
There is, finally, the fact that abortion, one of the most hotly
contested, polarizing debates in the country, is at the center of this
case. It arguably informs the abortion debate in any number of ways, and
has numerous plausible implications for abortion policy, including the
oversight and regulation of clinics, the appropriateness of late-term
abortions, the penalties for failing to report abuses, the statute of
limitations for killings like those with which Gosnell is charged,
whether staff should be legally culpable for the bad behavior of doctors
under whom they work…There’s just no end to it.
Non-coverage of the Gosnell case has been an extreme and frustrating example of media bias for more than two years. The turnaround that has occurred in the last 24 hours is simply astounding. But this did not happen by accident. It’s the result of the extra efforts taken by social conservatives and online, conservative media which kept a pilot light burning on this story. Special
credit goes to Kirsten Powers who broke the logjam with a blockbuster column yesterday. And finally to Mollie Hemingway whose question to a Post reporter on Twitter really made the invisible wall of silence visible last night.
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