Usually, Live Action just ignores Media Matters. After all, there’s not much there you can’t find on the AOL/Huffington Post or the Democratic Underground. We were going to let slide their usual accusations that our new video was “a hoax” and that we were “falsely smearing Planned Parenthood President” Cecile Richards –until they cooked up a little hoax of their own. In this recent matter of the missing mammograms, we think we have to set the record straight.

Media Matters made this astounding claim on Wednesday:

Media Matters claimed that Planned Parenthood clinics in Waco, TX and Tucson, AZ do in fact provide mammograms. Well, we called both Planned Parenthood clinics in Waco, TX, and the Tucson, AZ clinic, to see if our actor could make a mammogram appointment with them. Based on the results, let’s say Media Matters got some false positives:

Mary Ruth Duncan Women’s Health Center
1121 Ross Avenue
PO Box 1518
Waco, TX 76703
p: 254.759.5750

PP: This is Cindy, how may I help you?
Caller: Hi, I was wondering if I could come in for a mammogram appointment?
PP: No, we don’t do mammograms here at Planned Parenthood.

Audre Rapaport Women’s Health Center
1927 Columbus Ave
P.O. Box 1459
Waco, TX 76701
p: 254.759.5772

Caller: Hi Alice, I was hoping to schedule a mammogram appointment at Planned Parenthood. Do you provide mammograms?
PP: Have you–okay, you want to schedule a mammogram appointment? We don’t do mammograms here at Planned Parenthood.

Jean Hoffman Health Center
529 W. Wetmore Rd.
Tucson, AZ 85705
p: 520.884.5562

PP: Thank you for calling Planned Parenthood Arizona, my name is Melissa, how may I assist you?
Caller: Hi, I was wondering if I could schedule a mammogram appointment? Do you provide mammograms?
PP: No, we don’t, I’m sorry.

Breitbart’s Retracto the Correction Alpaca requested a retraction of Media Matters’ inaccurate reporting that Planned Parenthood clinics in Waco, TX and Tucson, AZ do in fact provide mammograms. Media Matters’ shot back a nasty “Request Denied” to the poor packmule, and insisted “our initial piece was in fact accurate.”

In MM’s latest screed, they drop the argument about Tucson altogether (perhaps because they realized it rested on particularly flimsy evidence–an advertisement for another group’s “mammovan” to visit the clinic parking lot back in 2009.  Plus, our video from Wednesday included a PP AZ representative admitting “We don’t provide those services whatsoever” and decided to focus entirely on Waco. And that’s where MM goes wacko.

They use a statement (which they have conspicuously not linked in their post) by PP Central TX CEO Felicia Chase Goodwin that says Planned Parenthood refers for mammograms to mean that Planned Parenthood provides mammograms:

“provides referrals and pays for mammograms and diagnostic follow up treatment for our patients at area radiology and surgical clinics.”

And then they drop the term “mammograms” altogether and cite the Texas Dept of Health’s listing of PP as a breast cancer screening provider:

“It’s not just Media Matters and Planned Parenthood who say that the Waco clinic provides cancer screenings; the Texas Department of Health says so.”

There are two types of breast cancer screening: manual exams, and mammograms. As everyone but Media Matters is now well aware, Planned Parenthood only does the former. And speaking of the Texas Department of Health, here’s an e-mail from them suggesting that Planned
Parenthood in Texas isn’t even licensed to perform mammograms:

So it should be pretty clear why Retracto wants that correction. Either Media Matters issues a correction or admits that it’s purpose isn’t media, it’s propaganda. Their call.

Yesterday, I did a piece showing how Media Matters used deceptive editing techniques on the Fox / Bill Sammon story. I’m still waiting to hear back from Sammon before I do part two but I wanted to show you a couple of more videos that I’ve done in the meantime.

The first one shows how Media Matters used the ‘straw man’ fallacy to attempt to discredit the piece published by Lila Rose yesterday on the Mammosham story. As I say in the video, your position on the controversial issue of abortion doesn’t really matter here – Media Matters are contemptible news twisters.

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When it comes to the Make-Believe Media, some news is more equal than others. And it’s not just a numbers racket. So when do the numbers justify news coverage?

Six hundred people at a New York AIDS rally make the New York Times. Smaller crowds make news if the cause is liberally righteous enough, such as protesting NY City spending cuts. Predictably, 3,000 anti-war protestors whether in San Francisco or Bangladesh merit AP attention and become an international news headline for the BBC. A rally 5,000 strong protesting violent crime in New Orleans gets Google’s powerful press with multiple stories reported around the country. Ditto St. Louis where 5,000 gathered to protest violence. Indeed, just days ago, on March 24^th, 2011, both MSNBC and Fox News circulated the AP’s report that 5,000 gathered at a pro-illegal immigrant rally in Atlanta, Georgia.

So it would seem 5,000 people doing anything vaguely political pretty much anywhere seems to be a magic news number, a politically critical mass worthy of coverage, right? Wrong. Consider two different events over the same weekend in the Los Angeles Area. Both drew over 5,000 registered marchers: One a “Labor” rally; the other a “Life” rally.

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“James O’Keefe and people like Lila Rose are held to a different standard.”

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A few weeks ago I attended the Walk-for-Life in San Francisco, having volunteered to drive a large group of high school students to the event.  On arrival, I dropped them off near the rally kick-off point.  Having no prior experience, I assumed it would be easy enough to go park my car and rejoin my students (wearing bright red sweatshirts) later.  After all, I figured, there wouldn’t be that many people.  How wrong I was.  The crowd was enormous.

To find my group, I stood at a lamppost along the route, watching hundreds of people passing by.  After about 30 minutes I began to count.  The marchers – confined to the boundaries of a two lane street – walked at least twenty abreast with each line of marchers passing by my spot every two seconds.  I waited in that same spot for over 90 minutes after I began counting.  When I finally found my little band of students and joined in the walk, the crowd stretched out far behind me, still thick with humanity.  By my personal estimate, I believe there were 60,000 to 70,000 people there that day, quietly marching, holding signs, signing songs and saying prayers to protect human life.  But you wouldn’t have known it from the news coverage that day.

The Make-Believe Media grudgingly reported this annual event but in a manipulative and distorted manner.  The coverage focused its cameras tightly on one pro-life speaker at the rally before the walk began, showing only his face, never panning back to show the throngs around him.  Not even a five second clip of the endless waves of marchers walking the route that day.  And they absurdly underreported the number of marchers.

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Given the reactions of the left to both the Acorn and Planned Parenthood stings you might be surprised to learn that Eyeblast has uncovered a nearly identical sting, at least in terms of tactics, against crisis pregnancy centers ABC did in 1991. Apparently back then the left had zero problems with undercover video investigations which end up as edited and excerpted pieces trying to prove a political point. They were also perfectly fine with showing just how much contempt they had for the “bad guys” they recorded.

In fact, Chris Wallace’s entire ABC report is drenched in condemnation and outrage. What exactly did these crisis pregnancy centers do that was so worthy of ABC’s attacks? Well, as far as I can tell, the overarching criticism is that they don’t want women to have abortions for various different reasons that ABC doesn’t agree with.

ABC doesn’t even show any real evidence that the crisis pregnancy centers had lied to anybody. The closest they come to doing that is when they confronts one of the crisis pregnancy center operators about one of her councilors describing the wrong abortion for the specific point in the faked pregnancy of one of the ABC producers. Essentially all of the other contentions ABC makes in the report are a matter of opinion.

More specifically ABC presents the opinions of pro-choicers and plays them off as though they are fact. The number of women killed by abortions, whether abortion causes breast cancer, and how women feel after having an abortion are all hotly debated issues yet ABC presents the Pro-Choice position on all as fact. They reinforce this by continually calling the crisis pregnancy centers, and by extension their supporters, “fake.”

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Over the past week, Live Action has released six videos revealing Planned Parenthood’s willingness to aid and abet the sex trafficker of underage girls (see: liveaction.org). Since the beginning of our release, Planned Parenthood has attacked our organization and attempted to discredit the growing evidence of institutional and rampant abuse cover up. Here is a top six list of some of the deceiving statements that Planned Parenthood has made in just the past few days.

Deception 6) “We reported this to the FBI”

Planned Parenthood wrote the FBI a letter a week after our investigation, only after they realized that Live Action had conducted the sting.They say this themselves. As much as they may pretend, Planned Parenthood was not attempting to help send human traffickers to jail; they were attempting to pre-empt the release of Live Action’s footage.

If Planned Parenthood really cared about reporting potential sex traffickers to authorities, they would have called police while the pimp was in the clinic, or immediately after. Not wasting a minute. Planned Parenthood, where are the reports from the now SIX clinics we’ve released, that you immediately called the police?

Why did all your staffers, instead of refusing service or gathering information from the pimp about his sex ring to inform authorities, GIVE the pimp information about how to access the Planned Parenthood system for secret services?

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They’ve turned her name into a verb. Refudiate?

The group founded by Van Jones (remember him?) is breathless in their hysteria and somehow managed to blame Andrew Breitbart for the words which fell from the mouths of Planned Parenthood employees.

The rightwing smear machine that took down Shirley Sherrod, Van Jones and ACORN is at it again. This time they are going after Planned Parenthood.

Are the willful actions of employees part of the “rightwing smear machine?” [Editor's note: Dibbs on the band name.] Unless … oh my: Andrew Breitbart has discovered a cloaking capability which allows him to, sight unseen, manipulate the words and actions of individuals across the country from him.

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In today’s article “Planned Parenthood Video Fuels Abortion Debate,” CBS News incorrectly reports, “[Lila] Rose has worked with the organization whose undercover videos helped bring down the community organizing group Acorn.”

Veritas Visuals compiled the ACORN video exposé; Ms. Rose have never worked with Veritas Visuals.

We kindly request they correct the record.

Lila Rose’s LiveAction.org has released the third video in the growing series of Planned Parenthood public relations nightmares. The just-released third video illustrates how staff at a Bronx PP facility in New York coached an undercover pimp and prostitute team in ways to obtain free abortions for under age immigrant sex slaves.

This writer and others at this site have already chronicled the media’s rush to aide PP in formulating defensive spin for the beleaguered tax-payer funded behemoth in the wake of the first two videos.

Just hours after the Bronx video’s release, Planned Parenthood announced its latest mea culpa: a nation wide “retraining” effort with promises to tighten discipline in what can only be characterized as a desperate public relations spin to retain its massive $300 million dollar annual taxpayer funding. So, by “retraining,” does PP mean “our clinics will stop conspiring with the child sex-slave industry?” Or does it mean “our clinics will be more alert to undercover journalists exposing their corruption?” Or does it mean “Oh, for Pete’s sake! You guys stop falling for that pimp sting, didn‘t you read the memos after the whole ACORN thing?!?”

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Fantastic interview from Lee Stranahan with Lila Rose, whose investigative videos on Planned Parenthood have been rocking headlines for well over a week. Here, Rose discusses the investigation, Planned Parenthood’s reaction, and the way in which the media dealt with (or not at all) the story.

Well… not THAT dirty work, but pretty close.

In an article released in today’s Politico, reporter Kate Nocera excitedly declared to her readers that she had “exclusively obtained” a letter signed by 27 liberal groups addressed to Congress calling on lawmakers to continue the federal financial support for Planned Parenthood in the wake of the undercover investigation conducted by Live Action.

Ms. Nocera’s article is peppered with quotes from the exclusively obtained letter, from Media Matters and from People for the American Way. Missing is a quote from Live Action, the target of the smear campaign which Big Journalism has learned was orchestrated by Media Matters on a conference call yesterday afternoon. That’s right, in her one-sided article that reads almost like a press release from Planned Parenthood, Ms. Nocera didn’t bother to get a reaction from Lila Rose or Live Action.

By just regurgitating claims from Planned Parenthood and their supporters, Politico has allowed the liberal spin on the Live Action video investigation to reside on their once-respected pages as if it was fact. I wonder if that was one of the conditions for Ms. Nocera’s “exclusive.”

In its original form, the Politico article contained this line: (more…)

With the over-the-top headline: “Why Is Live Action Doctoring Its Planned Parenthood Audio?“, Media Matters of America has offered its readers (all the content producers at MSNBC and network news) a pitiful story meant to plant the idea that the devastatingly effective investigative videos produced by Live Action are in some way bogus.  But, in turn, the “gotcha” that MMFA purports to have discovered actually undermines their own spin and talking points they have been peddling the last couple of days.  It also serves to bolster Live Action’s credibility, not diminish it.  Nice work, Senior Fellows.

First, let’s follow the timeline on this:

When the videos first hit on Tuesday showing Live Action’s undercover investigation of a New Jersey Planned Parenthood office, Media Matters response was that Planned Parenthood had done nothing wrong.  Media Matters even went so far as to call the videos “Hoax Videos.”  They held on to that story for the entire day, until Planned Parenthood undermined it just a bit by firing the employee who was featured in the video.   If Media Matters was trying to help Planned Parenthood, they did a lousy job.  Because now, thanks to them, the sacked employee has some pretty good evidence for her wrongful termination lawsuit.  After all, it was widely reported that the Live Action videos showed no wrong-doing, so why was she fired? (more…)

It was reported that Alternet, Soros’ Media Matters, and other progressives staged a conference call this afternoon where they mapped strategy to defend Planned Parenthood from the choices Planned Parenthood staffers made on tape.

Because apparently there still exist people who will fall for the “pimps’n'hookers” investigative strategy post-James O’Keefe.

Instead of focusing on the fact that there is an organization who turned a blind eye to child sex-trafficking, an organization that receives forced federal funding, the group of senior fellows ostensibly chose the route which affords zero defense of women, born or unborn, thereby saving them from compromising their female-hostile ideologies: attack Lila Rose. These outlets don’t see the insanity in feigning disgust that the racket was exposed, not that it occurred at all.

The majority of the call was spent discussing ways to discredit Rose because of her funding. They surmise that some group which donates to her pro-life magazine is a group donated to by a group given money by the Koch Brothers. So says people who just cashed a $1 million-dollar check from George Soros.

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In the journalistic blockbuster videos posted at Breitbart‘s Big Government and Big Journalism, Live Action exposes Planned Parenthood’s apparent complicity in putative underage sex-slave rings in New Jersey and, most recently, Virginia.  And the Make-Believe Media has circled the wagons around Planned Parenthood with obfuscated timelines and strawman arguments attempting to salvage PP’s public reputation.

Tipped off to this impending public relations disaster, last week PP announced – and the MBM dutifully reported – a purported FBI investigation of this undercover sting, implying that PP had discovered and quickly reported this possible criminal ring of underage sex traders.   Even the AP’s all-important Orwellian title “Planned Parenthood Seeks FBI Probe” implies a valiant PP calling for an FBI investigation of these criminals who sought PP’s advice in trafficking child sex slaves.

Yet, the videos appear to show billion-dollar corporation Planned Parenthood conspiring with child-prostitution hustlers.  Damning stuff?  Provocative, at least?  Well, no, not to some elements of the MBM.

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Several days ago, while visiting the home of a dear friend, Andrew Breitbart, I was asked to view a series of videos which were intended for immediate release into the news cycle. They were made through the efforts of Lila Rose, a woman I had never met. The videos depicted several senior staff members of various Planned Parenthood clinics aiding the efforts of a supposed human- sex-trafficker of children. The pro-life activists who made the videos were posing as a victim of sex-trafficking and as a perpetrator who was actively involved in illegally abducting and smuggling little girls into our country for the purpose of holding the children against their wills and allowing grown men to rape them for money.

Needless to say, a deeply profound conversation took place once he finished showing me the material. He asked me what I thought the Mainstream Media Establishment would do with this evidence. I told him there was no way they would be able to defend such injustices. He said they would — that they would misrepresent the facts and attack the videos creator. He, in graphic detail, described what the media would do. I didn’t agree and couldn’t imagine such an effort could be pulled off. I explained that it was impossible for two reasons: The videos were clear and the consciences of the journalists and editors would prevent such a dastardly spin from occurring. He explained that the Left’s darlings are always above reproach and the media would protect them to the point of absurdity.

Throughout the day, both of our minds couldn’t stop from returning to the Planned Parenthood issue. He couldn’t believe I could be so naïve as to really believe the Mainstream Media Establishment would honor truth and not protect their darling. My mind could not stop returning to the two subjects I always try to avoid thinking about: abortion and human-trafficking.

I explained to him that I didn’t take a position on the issue of abortion and that looking at the matter might force me to revisit an experience I was a part of in my past. I didn’t want to think about it or look at it, as I might have to come to some harsh conclusions about my own actions. He explained that he was adopted. The conversation stopped after this was said and didn’t resurface again. We went about our business of doing interviews and discussing news items.

On the night before the videos release, I went to bed alone in a Los Angeles hotel. Andrew had given me a pre-release copy of his new book and I couldn’t put it down. The realization of this man having been adopted and instead of being aborted, that he was born and thus able to create, think, express himself and participate in being an American citizen weighed heavy on my heart. I fell asleep wondering what would happen with the Planned Parenthood scandal the following morning.

The following morning started early with a cab ride to LAX. The first Planned Parenthood video was released on BigGovernment.com and I began frantically doing media analysis. Lo and behold, Andrew had been right.

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Not surprising, considering Youtube hasn’t been friendly to pro-life  issues in the past. Live Action, the group spearheaded by Lila Rose who released the explosive Planned Parenthood investigation videos just this week, was told this evening by Youtube that they had until tomorrow evening to remove the video pending “privacy concerns.”

You have 48 hours to take action on the complaint. If you remove the alleged violation from the site within the 48 hours, the complaint filed will then be closed.

[...]

When uploading videos in the future, please remember not to post someone else’s image or personal information without their consent. Personal information includes, but is not limited to, Social Security number, National Identification number, bank account number or contact information (e.g. home address, email address).

What isn’t clear is what “privacy violation” occurred. No personal information was released about Amy Woodruff or anyone else in the video. Woodruff was publicly fired by Planned Parenthood in a statement released by Phyllis Kinsler, the Executive Director of Planned Parenthood of central Jersey.

“We were profoundly shocked when we viewed the videotape released [Tuesday] morning, which depicted an employee of one of our health centers behaving in a repugnant manner that is inconsistent with our standards of care and is completely unacceptable.”

That by itself seems to debunk any claim of privacy violation.

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Within hours of the release of Lila Rose’s shocking and dismaying Planned Parenthood video, the leftist media trotted its favorite phrase for shutting out citizen journalists: “selectively edited.”  I suggested jokingly that it would happen, but sadly, the left is all too predictable.

Of course we see that smear from all the usual suspects:  Media Matters’ initial knee-jerk reaction was to dismiss the video merely for being “abridged,” then put in an update with a link to “what [Live Action] say[s] is” the full video.  The New York Times’ blurb coverage of the event repeated Planned Parenthood’s claim that the video was questionable because it was “edited.”  CBS News uses the phrase twice, first trying to associate the video with the discredited and unrelated allegations of selective editing levied against James O’Keefe, then as weasel-word insinuation: “Seemingly in response to criticism that it may have selectively edited the video, Live Action on Tuesday afternoon made public what it says is the full video of the New Jersey Planned Parenthood sting.”

First off, I would love to see what kind of “context” can justify recommending that a pimp have his post-abortion underage sex workers only perform sex acts “above the waist.”  Progressive commenters, please let me know what sort of ancillary statement can put that comment into perspective.  Second, it’s time to take that “selective editing” phrase and shove it back in the face of the MSM.

Editing, by its very nature, is selective and subjective.  You have too much video/audio for the time you believe your audience will pay attention to your message, so you select which footage you want to include.  “Selective editing” is as redundant as saying “jacket coat” or “blowhard Olbermann.”  But if the MSM believes that the very act of editing video immediately destroys its credibility, then we need to hold them to the same standard.

Take this recent news package from CBS:

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This news comes as no surprise, but as was the case with the ACORN video exposé, the target of Live Action’s investigation is not any specific branch manager.

N.J. Star Ledger has the report:

PERTH AMBOY — The man and woman walked into the Planned Parenthood clinic in Perth Amboy sounding like the operators of a child sex ring looking for help with their business.

They told the manager they would bring in girls as young as 14 for tests, birth control and abortion referrals and wanted to know what kind of questions to expect from clinic employees.

The manager was helpful. She coached them to lie about the age of the girls’ sex partners. “If they are a minor, we are obligated if we hear certain information, to kind of report (it),” the manager said. “So as long as they just lie and say, ‘Oh, he’s 15, 16,’ ’’ no one should question them.

But the man and woman were actually members of Live Action, a California-based anti-abortion group that targeted Planned Parenthood clinics in five states and Washington, D.C., last month. The scenes were videotaped and posted on YouTube, and today created a national uproar.

Tonight, Central Jersey Planned Parenthood fired the manager, identified in the video as Amy Woodruff, and beefed up security around its clinics. (more…)