On May 1, CNSNews.com published a fluffy interview with Josh Duggar, oldest son of the Duggar family of “19 Kids and Counting” fame, in which he declared that “marriage is central to the family and every single child deserves a mother and father” and complained that “there is an agenda to silence people of faith, those who hold a dissenting opinion.”
Actually, CNS is the one who’s engaged in the act of censorship, making sure no bad news about the Duggars appears on its “news” pages.
Earlier this week, news broke that Josh Duggar, as a teenager, was named as an “alleged offender” in an underage sexual abuse probe. Technicalities and other issues in the police investigation led to Duggar failing to be prosecuted in the case.
People magazine reports that the case involved Duggar molesting five underage girls as a teenager. The duggar family states that he underwent counseling and that he regrets his actions, he has since resigned from his job as executive director of the Family Research Council’s political action division.
Yet none of this is newsworthy at CNS — it has not reported a single word about Josh Duggar’s scandal, even though it has been two days since the story first broke, and even though it would not hesitate to do so if the perpetrator was not a cultural conservative.
So, what is newsworthy at CNS today? Likening President Obama to Osama bin Laden. No, really.
It seems CNS would much rather do fluffy interviews to advance right-wing ideology than engage in actual journalism without fear or favor.
UPDATE: Wonkette notes that according to the police report, four of the five victims of Josh Duggar’s molestation were his own sisters. And Right Wing Watch reports that Duggar has a history of claiming that gays — not people like himself — are a threat to child safety.
If CNS reports this at all, it will be couched in some heavy-duty spinning to highlight the power of Christian redemption or something. Again, a whitewashing that CNS would never provide to anyone who isn’t a cultural conservative.