CBS erroneously refers to Planned Parenthood videos as ‘now-discredited’

In a Sunday article entitled ‘Planned Parenthood attack victims identified as Iraq war vet, mom,’ CBS falsely referred to the undercover Planned Parenthood videos released this year by the Center for Medical Progress as “now-discredited.”

In an otherwise wonderful article, we learn about the personal lives and heroic deaths of the three people killed in Friday’s shooting: UCCS Police Officer Garrett Swasey (who also happened to be a pro-life pastor), army veteran and father Ke’Arre Stewart, and loving mother of two, Jennifer Markovsky. We read about the deranged behavior of the shooter, Robert Lewis Dear.

But in typical mainstream media fashion, CBS couldn’t stop there. They had to take a jab at the pro-life movement. The article stated:

On Sunday, Planned Parenthood said Dear’s words matched the “hateful rhetoric” GOP presidential candidates and many conservative leaders have been using since now-discredited, secretly taped videos discussing the procurement of fetal body parts for medical research.

Several Twitter users reacted with shock at the claim that the Planned Parenthood videos were “now-discredited.” Interestingly, since this occurred, CBS appears to have edited the article, removing that particular wording (replacing it with the phrase “controversial and contested videos”)  – but the original text is in the screenshot below:

The videos mentioned are the series released earlier this year by the Center for Medical Progress, which show Planned Parenthood officials haggling over the price of baby body parts. The problem with the article’s original description of the videos is that it’s completely false. The videos have not been discredited. Sure, pro-abortion politicians and Planned Parenthood have argued from the beginning that the short videos were edited. (Of course they were edited, as most videos are.) However, the Center for Medical Progress also released full, unedited videos to prove that content was not altered beyond the editing out of unnecessary or irrelevant content (such as bathroom breaks).

Unfortunately for Planned Parenthood (and apparently for CBS),  forensic analyses have proven that the videos were unaltered.

Coalfire Systems, the group which examined the 10 full-footage videos, found that “the videos were not manipulated. The report said any missing footage was of ‘non-pertinent’ events like meals and bathroom breaks.” (Read that report here.)

Planned Parenthood also hired a firm to investigate the videos, Fusion GPS, reported to be “an opposition research firm with ties to the Democratic party and… a history of harassing socially conservative Republican donors, possibly on behalf of the Obama campaign.”

As expected, Planned Parenthood’s chosen “experts” went along with Planned Parenthood’s claims that the shorter videos were “heavily edited.” However, after the examination, Politico reported that Fusion GPS did in fact state that there is no evidence whatsoever that the Center for Medical Progress made up any of the dialogue. Fusion GPS also admitted in their report that there is “no widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation.” Planned Parenthood’s own analysis proved them wrong – yet they continue to claim the videos were faked, and they’ve gotten a lot of people who have never seen a single one of the videos to believe them – with a little help from their friends at CBS and other mainstream media outlets.

So there you have it. Yet another example of mainstream media side-stepping inconvenient truth, and placing blame where it does not belong.