“We wouldn’t just throw something willy-nilly on the air,” WTVR reporter Greg McQuade said recently, defending the CBS-affiliate’s decision to air controversial video footage recorded inside a Richmond Planned Parenthood facility (segment after the jump).
The video was filmed by members of Live Action, an activist organization that has distributed several undercover videos filmed at Planned Parenthood sites around the country. WTVR covered the video, which shows a Planned Parenthood worker discussing an abortion with a girl posing as an underage prostitute, earlier this month and McQuade spoke with Lila Rose, the organization’s president.
“You take an organization at its word,” McQuade told Adam Hochberg, in a new Poynter piece on the pitfalls of using undercover recordings.
McQuade says that he “did his homework” in doing the report and notes that Planned Parenthood “was duly represented.”
McQuade’s original report included a statement from Planned Parenthood of Virginia and the station did a follow-up interview with a representative from the organization, who said that the video was “a political ploy to discredit Planned Parenthood” (video below).
Here’s McQuade’s original report:
And the follow-up interview with a Planned Parenthood representative: