Those nasty conservatives forced us to cover the Gosnell trial.  That's my translation of the New York Times headline, "Online Furor Draws Press to Abortion Doctor's Trial." The piece by Trip Gabriel appeared on page A12 of today's print edition, and finally brings inhabitants of the Times Bubble up to date on an outline of the most dramatic details of the testimony so far.  But the main thrust of the piece is to avoid confronting the nature of the blackout, and focus attention on the role of social media and the paranoid anger of the right. Here is the second paragraph: The grisly details drew mainly local attention. But after an online furor that the case was being ignored by the national news media because of troubling accounts of late-term abortions, reporters from major newspapers and television networks descended Monday on the Court of Common Pleas. It was the latest example of the power of social media to drive a wide debate, similar to the attention paid to a rape...(Read Full Post)