In what one observer called the “least surprising ‘revolving door’ move ever,” former CBS News abortion reporter Kate Smith has been hired as Planned Parenthood’s “first ever senior director of news content,” Politico reported Monday.
“Thrilled to be joining Planned Parenthood full-time on this exciting new project,” tweeted an elated Smith, who covered “abortion access” for CBS from 2018 to 2021.
Smith then posted a Planned Parenthood announcement about her new job:
With attacks on abortion access and misinformation spreading across the country, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund are launching their first ever news content team to create and promote authentic, fact-based news and stories around sexual and reproductive health care. The new team will develop expert-informed news content to combat abortion stigma and health misinformation by documenting the stories of patients, health care providers and staff, especially those most impacted by restrictive anti-abortion policies.
One can be fairly certain that any news put out by Planned Parenthood will be as “authentic” and “fact-based” as those studies the tobacco industry funded to “prove” that cigarettes aren’t harmful to one’s health.
Still, the job is most definitely a good fit for Smith, who used her position at CBS to promote the pro-abortion line and denigrate any dissenters. Two years ago, National Review’s Alexandra DeSanctis wrote of Smith:
She is an advocate for abortion rights who exploits her perch at CBS to disguise as fact the opinions of the country’s most radical abortion-rights activists. She is Planned Parenthood’s ambassador to CBS, posing as a reporter and constructing articles that more closely resemble press releases for the nation’s most powerful abortion-rights advocacy groups. She has traded her objectivity for access to these organizations, offering them the kid-glove treatment so they will permit her to be the first to publicize their PR campaigns, interview their leaders, and scoop their briefs in court cases.
In addition to using the abortion industry’s favored terms (such as “reproductive rights”) while putting its opponents’ terms (such as “late-term abortion”) in scare quotes, Smith was not above misstating pro-life lawmakers’ motivations. When Congress was considering a bill to require doctors to administer life-saving treatment to babies who survive abortions, Smith claimed it was “part of an ongoing attempt by Republicans to shift the debate on reproductive rights.” In reality, however, it was spurred by a remark by Virginia’s Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, in which he stated that he thought decisions on treatment for abortion survivors should be left up to doctors and hospitals. “The born-alive bill, then, was not an example of GOP debate-shifting but a response to Democratic extremism; Smith, of course, had little choice but to ignore that fact entirely,” penned DeSanctis.
DeSanctis wasn’t alone in pointing out Smith’s highly biased reporting. In response to Smith’s joining Planned Parenthood, conservative commentator Erick Erickson tweeted, “I remember getting notes from several reporters upset with me saying Kate Smith has been nothing but a propagandist for the abortion industry at CBS and now this.”
“She did such a good job helping the abortion rights movement they hired her away,” tweeted Terry Schilling of the American Principles Project. “More of this please!”
Of course, when she left CBS last summer, Smith pretended that she’d been an unbiased reporter who was finally free to speak her mind. “Now that I’m not a reporter I can be candid about my own opinions on reproductive rights,” she wrote on Twitter. “I’ll say this: With or without Roe v Wade access to abortion is disappearing across the South and Midwest for low income women. And it’s happening more or less under the radar.”
Since then, Smith has continued her open abortion advocacy. According to LifeNews.com, “She appears to have been the key source of false but widely-circulated claims that a Missouri pro-life bill would prevent women from receiving treatment for life-threatening ectopic pregnancies.”
With a track record like that, Smith will feel right at home at Planned Parenthood. “Her time flacking for abortion-advocacy groups under the guise of straight reporting,” observed DeSanctis, “will have prepared her well for her new role.”
Or, as the National Journalism Center’s Becket Adams quipped: “’Bout time they pay her for the pr work.”
