{"id":79945,"date":"2015-11-13T14:58:21","date_gmt":"2015-11-13T19:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=79945"},"modified":"2015-11-13T17:44:20","modified_gmt":"2015-11-13T22:44:20","slug":"katie-couric-helps-planned-parenthood-mislead-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/katie-couric-helps-planned-parenthood-mislead-public\/","title":{"rendered":"Katie Couric helps Planned Parenthood to mislead the public"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

You know what the media just doesn\u2019t have enough of? Puff pieces making the abortion industry look totally wholesome. On Wednesday, Yahoo posted a video<\/a> in which Katie Couric visited a new Planned Parenthood center in Queens, New York for an inside look.<\/p>\n

That would be \u201cinside look\u201d not in the investigative sense of digging up the truth behind the company line, but in the \u201cfree advertising\u201d sense. It\u2019s mostly a bland recitation of facts and details, but it contains a few bits of spin that are worth calling out.<\/p>\n

The video\u2019s write-up opens with this statement:<\/p>\n

\n

While nearly 100 percent of the controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood involves its abortion practices, the group says that abortions account for only 3 percent of the services it provides.<\/p>\n

<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Under the conventional understanding of journalism, a claim by the controversial subject of your article about the topic at issue is exactly the sort of thing you\u2019d investigate.<\/p>\n

Pro-life groups like Live Action<\/a> and The Radiance Foundation<\/a> have done our own debunkings of the number, explaining that it\u2019s derived from unbundling items that are part of a service and counting them as entirely separate services, and pointing out that it obscures the fact that Planned Parenthood gets a third of its clinic revenue from abortion. Interestingly, though, pro-life activists aren\u2019t the only ones with objections: the Washington Post\u2019s fact-checker has also called it misleading<\/a> and USA Today\u2019s editorial board refuses<\/a> to use it. Even some pro-abortion outlets reject it, such as Slate senior editor Rachael Larimore\u2019s 2013 declaration<\/a> that it\u2019s the \u201cmost meaningless abortion statistic ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 3% figure has been disputed for years, and has been a particularly frequent fixture of coverage on the undercover videos<\/a> (which Couric didn\u2019t ask about, either). There is no excuse for any professional news outlet to repeat it unchallenged. Yahoo\u2019s \u201cthe group says\u201d dodge doesn\u2019t pass the buck for misreporting; if anything, it draws attention to the fact that they\u2019re just acting as a mouthpiece.<\/p>\n

In the video, Couric also interviews Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards, who tells her, \u201cWe see patients from all walks of life, and for many women, we\u2019re the only healthcare provider they\u2019ll see this year\u201d – which is an interesting definition of \u201cmany,\u201d seeing as how according to their own annual report, only 0.9% of women<\/a> use their services. Nor did this prominent, veteran news figure bother to ask this controversial CEO\u00a0about her multitude of false statements recently exposed<\/a> in high-profile congressional testimony.<\/p>\n

Afterward, Planned Parenthood of New York City center director Mariella Camargo shows off an ultrasound machine, explaining that it \u201cdetermines how far along the pregnancy is, so we know what kind of procedure we have to do.\u201d Wait a minute! I thought that one of the reasons ultrasound laws<\/a> were horrible was because, according to<\/a> the Guttmacher Institute, \u201can ultrasound can add significantly to the cost of the procedure.\u201d Yet here\u2019s Planned Parenthood admitting they routinely do ultrasounds anyway, and are really just objecting to having to turn the screen around and show women what their child looks like. Thanks for helping us clear that up, Katie!<\/p>\n

The last point of interest is Couric asking Latasha McGriff, Planned Parenthood New York City’s health center director,\u00a0how Planned Parenthood handles women who are \u201cambivalent about getting an abortion.\u201d McGriff assures her that Planned Parenthood\u2019s social workers make clear that they have \u201cmany options, that abortion is not the only option.\u201d This would have been a good time for a real journalist to ask why, if that\u2019s the case, Planned Parenthood doles out $50 abortion coupons<\/a>, why its counselors have been caught<\/a> exaggerating abortion\u2019s safety and pregnancy\u2019s dangers, why scores<\/a> of its former patients attest<\/a> to counselors actively pushing abortion, or why Planned Parenthood\u2019s adoption referrals are declining<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"DefundAd-400b\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A 1992 profile<\/a> of Katie Couric describes her as \u201ctough if need be,\u201d capable of \u201ckiller interview[s]\u201d characterized by \u201cblunt and direct\u201d questions and \u201cnot deterred by rhetoric or intimidated by titles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nothing of the kind was recognizable here. This wasn\u2019t independent news; it was a pro-bono Planned Parenthood press release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You know what the media just doesn\u2019t have enough of? Puff pieces making the abortion industry look totally wholesome. On Wednesday, Yahoo posted a video in which Katie Couric visited a new Planned Parenthood center in Queens, New York for an inside look. That would be \u201cinside look\u201d not in the investigative sense of digging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":79956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[4559,19,70,6156,415,226,573,14,384,998,5551],"yoast_head":"\nKatie Couric helps Planned Parenthood to mislead the public<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Katie Couric bills herself as a "tough" journalist, but her latest piece on Planned Parenthood is basically an advertisement for the abortion giant.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/katie-couric-helps-planned-parenthood-mislead-public\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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