You may have heard about the murder trial of Kermit Gosnell recently, the abortion provider charged with the murder of one patient and seven babies. If so, it’s probably thanks to a social media campaign last week which exposed mainstream media’s silence on the subject. I examine the details in a how Twitter—yes, Twitter—brought the subject to the forefront, effectively shaming the news media into covering the story. It’s in my post “Twitter Users Force Big Media to Cover Abortion Doctor’s Trial.”
After weeks of growing frustration, pro-lifers took to Twitter en masse Friday to express disbelief and outrage over media silence on the multiple-murder trial of American abortion provider Kermit Gosnell. And the media, at least some of it, seems to be listening.
I describe the immediate reaction by the media, and some publications’ admission of negligence in reporting the case (and their promise to do better). But as I note at the end:
It seems, then, that the Tweetfest has succeeded in its goal of making the mainstream media end its blackout of the Gosnell trial. Powers’ original column and the subsequent Twitter campaign which followed it might seem like a story in itself: “Social media little-guys make big news listen,” and all that. But the real story here is that it took a Twitter campaign at all; major news outlets should have been covering this trial from the get-go.
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