All the News That's Fit[s] toOur Printurpose

I was thinking while perusing the paper of record this morning how easily purported journalism shades into opinion.

    Planned Parenthood on Monday claimed to congressional investigators that abortion opponents had harassed and unlawfully infiltrated its clinics for years, and most likely possessed thousands of hours of surreptitious video recordings that revealed actual events and actual statements by Planned Parenthood officials that their opponents might “deceptively edit” and spread for months to come.
    The admission came in a five-page letter from a Planned Parenthood lawyer that was the group’s initial response to an investigation by Republicans on a House committee. Last week, the committee opened the inquiry after anti-abortion activists circulated a video showing one of the organization’s doctors describing how casually some affiliates alter gruesome procedures to provide donated fetal tissue to researchers* while struggling not to give the impression that that is what they are doing.

Oh, wait... except that's not what the paper printed.

That would be this:

    Planned Parenthood on Monday told congressional investigators that abortion opponents had harassed and unlawfully infiltrated its clinics for years and most likely possessed thousands of hours of surreptitious video recordings that they could “deceptively edit” and spread for months to come.
The charge came in a five-page letter from a Planned Parenthood lawyer that was the group’s initial response to an investigation by Republicans on a House committee. Last week, the committee opened the inquiry after anti-abortion activists circulated a video showing one of the organization’s doctors describing how some affiliates provide donated fetal tissue to researchers.

Parts is parts, as the chicken commercials used to say.

“We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”

Yes, the failure of the tone to display you compassion is what is amiss here.

*For profit researchers? this is unclear, but I do wonder.