Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire

By noon, I had already received e-mails about Katie Couric's announcement that she was leaving The Today Show to become the anchor for CBS Evening News in September.

But I'd like to begin TN&V for Wednesday with a quick follow-up on a previous edition. As you may recall, even some of the pillars of the abortion industry have been shaken by the RU486-deaths of seven women in the United States, 12 deaths worldwide. And that doesn't even address the issue of the much higher rate of complications associated with the two-drug abortion technique.

A colleague pointed out that when I wrote about this, based on a story in the New York Times, I had missed a couple of significant comments that had appeared in the article.

First, as compared to surgical abortions, there is a five to ten times greater likelihood that a RU486 abortion will "fail. " And "[T]hose that do fail require a follow-up surgical procedure in women whose pregnancies by then may have advanced significantly," wrote Gardiner Harris. "Generally, the later a woman undergoes an abortion, the greater the risks."

Second, according to the Times, the reported death risk from a surgical abortion is one-tenth as high as from a "pill-induced" abortion.

But the pro-RU486 forces weren't about to take that lying down.

Read carefully the following Times' paraphrase of a comment by Dr. Cynthia Summers, a spokeswoman for Danco Laboratories, the American manufacturer of RU486:

 "[A]comparison of the risks of medical and surgical abortion was unfair because, she said, reports of problems with surgical procedures were poorly collected."

Whoa! Imagine if a pro-lifer had made that statement. But coming from a voice within an abortion industry insider, it does lend additional weight to a charge pro-lifers have made for years. To no avail, we've said that because there are so few reporting requirements, the real total of injuries and fatalities from surgical abortions is likely considerably higher than the numbers that make their way into reports.

As for Katie Couric, talk about jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. We're only a few months removed from the end of Mr. Bias's reign and Dan Rather is replaced by someone who is, if possible, even less concerned about showing her one-sidedness, including on abortion.

The following is gleaned from compilations put together by the Media Research Center and Discoverthenetworks.org. (There are a host of other quotes proving that Couric and fairness are not on a first-name basis, but they are on issues outside our purview.)

Couric once asked Haley Barbour (now governor of Mississippi but then chair of the Republican National Committee), "So you don't think the right wing should be so narrow-minded or rigid when it comes to abortion?"

In one of seven abortion-related questions, Couric once asked Texas Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, "You know a lot has been made of the Republican Party being a very inclusive party, one that can embrace the views of various people. Given the way the platform has worked out, vis-a-vis abortion, and the fact that some of these Republican governors are not speaking because they felt as if they were being censored, do you still believe you can call the Republican Party an inclusive party?"

My favorite, so to speak, came in an folksy interview with actress Whoopi Goldberg  which happened to see on the Today Show. (When Couric doesn't like you, she aims 95 mph fastballs at your head. When she likes you--for example, when she interviews one of the Clintons or Al Gore--it's softball city.)

Responding to a question about abortion (to quote Media Research Center's transcription of the interview) Goldberg said,

"Well because, you know, when you get out there and you march, because we've marched together."

Couric, feigning ignorance, retorted: "Nooo. I'm not allowed to do that." [She giggles]

Goldberg, playing along, with tongue firmly implanted in cheek as she stared upward: "Oh, no that's right. We have not marched together. It was somebody that looked like you."

At this point Couric is staring at Goldberg who is laughing as are others off-camera as Goldberg acknowledges her error in making a public mention: "Uh, I forget where I am sometimes."

To be fair, Couric is hardly the only unfair journalist floating around, just one of the most richly compensated. Let me offer just the latest example of a litany of media bias that could go on for pages.

Ordered by Kerry Marash, senior vice president for editorial standards, and approved by ABC News President David Westin, the executive producer of the weekend edition of Good Morning America was suspended for a month over two leaked e-mails. One deals directly with us.

During the first presidential debate in 2004,  John Green wrote to a colleague on his BlackBerry: "Are you watching this? Bush makes me sick. If he uses the 'mixed messages' line one more time, I'm going to puke."

In his story about Green's suspension, the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, in one of the great understatements of recent memory, observed, "Both e-mails were disclosed at a time when public distrust of news organizations and their ability to be fair are at or near an all-time high." You don't say.

After the usual pro-forma apologies from ABC News officials, Kurtz's story ends with two examples of exactly why the public's distrust is reaching stratospheric heights.

"It is widely believed at ABC News that the e-mails were leaked by a former employee who has a vendetta against Green." Get it? Green's reprehensible comments are mitigated by the allegation that somebody with an agenda leaked the e-mails to the Drudge Report.

And then this final you've-got-to-be-kidding observation from ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider.

"Everyone who works at ABC News is unhappy with the situation because it reflects on all of us," Schneider said. But, he said, "I don't think the e-mails tell us anything about the show John Green was putting on the air every Saturday and Sunday, which is fair and balanced and down the middle."

As the saying goes, you can't make this stuff up.