A daily roundup of the biggest stories in right-wing media.
On Tuesday, prosecutors in California charged anti-abortion activists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt with 15 felonies—14 for filming individuals without their consent and one for conspiracy to invade privacy. The pair are responsible for a series of heavily edited videos that purport to show Planned Parenthood abortion providers offering to sell fetal parts.
Conservative media outlets largely responded with outrage to the charges and many sites suggested that this was a politicized attempt to suppress the truth. In an article headlined “California Indicts Activists Who Filmed Planned Parenthood Talking About Selling Baby Organs,” the Daily Caller noted that the judge connected to the indictment is “a Democrat and former member of Congress with a lifetime 100 percent rating from Planned Parenthood Action Fund.”
Similarly, a Federalist headline claimed, “California Wants to Imprison Pro-Lifers for Committing Journalism.” Reprinting coverage from the Washington Examiner, Infowars suggested that we were seeing “[t]he criminalization of investigative journalism.” National Review went farther in “California’s Radical Pro-Abortion Regime,” arguing that Daleiden had simply revealed Planned Parenthood’s “true character” and warning that “indicting David Daleiden on 15 felony counts crosses the border of legitimate law enforcement to using the law as a weapon of tyranny.”
Breitbart largely ignored the indictment on Wednesday, instead splashing links to an article about a new video from Daleiden’s Center for Medical Progress across the top of its home page. That post, detailing what Daleiden purports to have discovered (“a longtime Planned Parenthood abortion doctor willing to sell baby parts for profit, use criminal abortion methods to get more intact body parts, and even cover up infanticide”), does not mention today’s criminal charges.
On Facebook, a Fox News post about too aggressive gun control spread widely:
And a Breitbart post mocking New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio accumulated more than 4,000 comments.
