I’m really starting to get the Media Matters strategy – create a ton of SEO-friendly content that piles on lie after lie then count on your loyal fan base to unquestionably link and comment.
It’s amazing. And it works! But it’s so appallingly transparent.One beauty of the strategy is that the more they lie, they more links they get back to their site – and then the higher they get in the search rankings. Genius, really.
So let’s unpack a MMfA lie step by step – their claim that Planned Parenthood in Waco provides mammogram services. Well do this slowly and methodically, The numbered heading provide links to the original articles.
Background
This starts with Live Action making a video that points out that Planned Parenthood’s president claimed that millions of women would lose access to mammograms if Planned Parenthood lost funding. Live Action makes calls and finds out that Planned Parenthood doesn’t provide mammograms directly but provides referrals.
This distinction – providing the service directly vs. providing referrals – is the crux of the whole debate. The use of the word ‘access’ is where the argument also turns.
Live Action points out that Planned Parenthood provides referrals only as a statement of fact.
1) Media Matters First Response
MMfA right there is making a distinction between mammograms directly provided by the PP and “access” to mammograms. Their defense on this point actually hinges on that distinction – they point out that Planned Parenthood never said “we provide them.”
Later in the same article, MMfA introduces Waco Texas to the discussion as an example of a place that PROVIDES mammograms.
MMfA says that SOME PP clinics DO PROVIDE mammograms. Media Matters is making a clear positive assertion that Waco provides the services directly as opposed to other PP clinics which provide ACCESS.
So again – MMfA is bringing up Waco not as an example of access but of directly providing services. If all Waco does is provide referrals, then they are just like every other PP clinic.
2) BigJournalism Requests Retraction
Then BigJournalism looks into it and finds that – nope, Media Matters had it totally wrong and Waco doesn’t provide services.
3) Media Matters Refuses To Retract
So here’s why Media Matters SUCKS. Here’s where you see what awful, unabashed liars they are.
After THEY brought as Waco as an example of a Planned Parenthood clinic as a place that provides mammogram screening services directly – not access, not referrals, but screenings themselves – Media Matters does a total about face and pretends they were only talking about referrals.
So – Waco, like EVERY Planned Parenthood clinic does NOT provide services – they provide referrals.
So when Media Matters brought up Waco as an example of place that (unlike other PP clinics) provided services – they were WRONG.
Media Matters has total contempt for their audience . They know that nobody will call them on this obvious about face on the very heart of the disagreement.