In America today, fake news has become a common descriptor used by both sides of the ideological divide against media reports and even opinion pieces that do not support or reflect the views and beliefs of one side or the other. But there is objective truth, and then there are arbitrary definitions of “truth” that are not supported by the cold, hard facts. Published articles that fall into the latter category continue to garner awards and accolades – but, strangely enough, almost always when they support the left-wing narrative du jour.
The latest example of this was a Pulitzer Prize awarded to the zealously left-wing ProPublica for a tragic story the publication managed to link, without any solid supporting facts, to one red state’s strict abortion laws.
The Pulitzer was awarded on May 5 to ProPublica for an article published in September 2024 under the title, “Life of the Mother – How Abortion Bans Lead to Preventable Deaths.” It is the awful tale of a young Georgia mother who died from medical complications after taking pills formulated to terminate a pregnancy.
The mother, 30-year-old Amber Nicole Thurman, was pregnant with twins she did not want. She had a young son and, according to a friend, could not face the financial burden of two more children. Those are not the exact words used by the friend. As ProPublica put it, Thurman “quickly decided she needed to preserve her newfound stability” upon learning she was pregnant in 2022.
Georgia has banned abortion at six weeks, and Thurman was beyond that. She traveled to North Carolina, where she was prescribed a commonly used abortion pill. Side effects from these pills are rare, but Thurman developed life-threatening complications. She returned to Georgia and was admitted to the hospital, needing a dilation and curettage, also known as D&C, to remove fetal tissue that had not been expelled from her uterus.
The hospital delayed the procedure, and by the time Thurman was on the operating table, it was too late.
Fake News Comes for Georgia’s Abortion Law
Here is why the report on this story, written by Kavitha Surana, reasonably qualifies for the fake news label. Surana could have presented it as a case of Georgia’s six-week abortion ban being the culprit. Had Thurman been able to have an abortion beyond the six-week deadline in her home state, she may well be alive today. From the pro-abortion position, this would have been an effective argument. Instead, the author of the article claims that the procedure Thurman required was delayed because the Peach State’s abortion law had criminalized it. That’s the fake news part. D&C, under the law, is indeed permitted when the life of the mother is in imminent danger.
Surana was not able to speak with anyone directly involved in Thurman’s case who would, or could, confirm that the delay at the hospital was because D&C had been banned. No one at the hospital made that claim, nor did anyone from the state committee “tasked with examining pregnancy-related deaths to improve maternal health.” The committee merely concluded that “the hospital’s delay in performing the critical procedure had a ‘large’ impact on [Thurman’s] fatal outcome.”
It is worth noting that in the footnote to the ProPublica article, “How We Reported the Story,” the publication begins by stating, “ProPublica reporter Kavitha Surana reviewed death records and medical examiner and coroner reports to identify cases that may be related to abortion access.” That’s an admission, then, that ProPublica’s journalist set out to find tragic stories like Thurman’s on which she could blame abortion restrictions.
Making the Story Fit the Narrative
Fake news is too often the result when a journalist first decides to promote a political narrative and then sets out to find stories that will facilitate that intention.
In the final analysis, Surana’s article draws a connection that is not established by the facts. That the hospital decided to go ahead with Thurman’s D&C procedure – albeit too late – is proof enough that Georgia law did not prevent it from doing so. A rare side effect of abortion medication is what put Thurman’s life in danger. The delay in carrying out a vital procedure at the hospital, for reasons not publicly known, fatally exacerbated the situation.
Given the few facts known to anyone outside the hospital and the Georgia commission that investigated the matter, blame cannot be accurately assessed. To point the finger at the state’s abortion law – especially when part of that law has been, intentionally or not, misrepresented – begs for the fake news moniker.
The Pulitzer board appears to have quite an appetite for “investigative” news articles that present a heavy left-wing political perspective. There is little regard, apparently, for the veracity of the reporting. President Donald Trump has an ongoing lawsuit against the board for awarding prizes to The New York Times and DC’s most famous newspaper for their coverage of the infamous Trump-Russia “collusion” affair.
Pulitzer Lies?
That entire story, of course, turned out to be the gold standard for fake news. Exhaustive FBI and special counsel investigations found no proof of such a conspiracy. It was later exposed as a hoax that originated with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The American legacy media has for some time been tainted by a predominantly left-wing political bias. To the detriment of the American people, this bias in most instances prevents balanced, objective, and, in too many cases, honest reporting. In fact, several left-leaning journalists and pundits have asserted that the conservative agenda is so onerous – more specifically, Trump’s agenda – that objective reporting is no longer possible or desirable. The “other side” simply isn’t worthy of a fair hearing.
As for ProPublica, this isn’t its first foray into fake news – nor its winning of a Pulitzer for the same. In June 2024, The Federalist exposed a ProPublica hit piece targeting Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The allegations contained in that report were exposed as entirely untrue, but another Pulitzer was handed out.
All this deception leaves a burning question, especially given the political left’s fondness for censoring what it calls misinformation: If one is on the right side of ethics and morality, with a truly better vision for a more perfect society, why would one need to rely so heavily on feeding the public a steady diet of fake news about one’s political opponents?
