It’s taken surprisingly long for an organization that professes to be a “news” operation, but CNSNews.com has finally gotten around to reporting on the Josh Duggar sexual molestation scandal. But, oddly, it still doesn’t consider this “news.”
Melanie Hunter’s May 22 item on Duggar is not presented as “news” but, rather, as a blog post — the same status also afforded to Michael W. Chapman’s stenography of Franklin Graham and posts dedicated to the stylings of “Evan Sayet, the nation’s leading conservative, political comedian.”
Hunter also presents the Duggar scandal in as perfunctory a manner as possible — apparently finally moved to write about it only after the Duggars’ “19 Kids and Counting” show was canceled because of the revelations — keeping to reporting only statements and refusing to dig into the issue. For instance, Hunter notes that Josh Duggar’s victims “live[d] in the Duggar home,” but fails to note the obvious conclusing that Duggar was molesting his sisters.
Hunter also uncritically repeats a claim that Duggar was “sent to a Christian treatment program,” but ignores reporting that the “treatment program” was actually some guy in the home remodeling business who was actually “more of a mentor … kind of” rather than someone with actual counseling credentials, which you’d think would be important in dealing with a teenager who molested his sisters.
Hunter uses her dry, perfunctory writing to hide the fact that the Duggar family waited a year to report Josh’s behavior to authorities. She also doesn’t mention that CNS has favorably promoted Duggar in the past.
Hunter’s treatment of the Duggar story is not the only sign CNS would rather ignore it. CNS’ Twitter account has not promoted the story, nor have the Twitter accounts of editor in chief Terry Jeffrey and managing editor Michael Chapman. And the Duggar story is still being censored on other MRC websites, such as NewsBusters, MRC TV, and the main MRC website.