Pulse

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At The Wrap it was “an individual to [sic] knowledge of the situation” who whispered in its ear that NBC was refusing to air an ad for the pro-abortion movie Obvious Child if it included the word “abortion.” 

At Bustle this news came “according to The Wrap,” i.e., Chinese telephone.

It was “sources” who told the New York Post’s Page 6 and “a source [who] told Page 6″ when the rumor jumped across the pond to The Daily Mail.

Finally, the source revealed itself to The Hill as Planned Parenthood Action Fund (although NARAL was the source elsewhere), and to its credit, The Hill properly investigated and shot Planned Parenthood’s false hysteria down (even if the post’s title perpetuated the abortion giant’s Pinnochio):

NBC said the Planned Parenthood group has its facts wrong. 

“No final spots were submitted to NBC broadcast standards for on-air consideration and NBC Broadcast Advertising Sales was never contacted about a media buy on NBC for spots related to this movie,” said a spokeswoman for NBCUniversal. 

“Moreover, initial feedback from our broadcast standards group did not include any suggestion to remove a specific word.” 

Planned Parenthood is substantially invested in Obvious Child, not only because it was “consulted heavily” during the making of the movie but also because it played a part….

That’s all aside from the huge propaganda factor, since Obvious Child seeks to normalize and even joke about abortion.

But The Hill didn’t stop with calling out Planned Parenthood there;  it also shot down the organization for falsely accusing NBC of “editing out a joke that referred to abortion in its show Last Comic Standing. Full footage of the joke revealed that the edited word was referring to oral sex, not abortion,” as Jezebel details a bit more.

Whether or not Planned Parenthood’s false hysteria regarding the A-word and Obvious Child was intentional, it did achieve the goal of getting the movie lots of “earned media,” or free press.

But the hysteria is also telling. On the defensive much, Planned Parenthood?

Reprinted with permission from Jill Stanek.