“And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dare
Disturb the sound of silence.”

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, of the eponymous folk music group, released “The Sound of Silence” in October 1964—the blessed year and month of my own birth—as part of the album “Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.” and it promptly tanked. It took nearly another year and a remix by Bob Dylan producer Tom Wilson (done without the duo’s knowledge) before the song became a hit, eventually becoming one of the most iconic songs of the 1960’s flower-power era.

What’s fitting about that song today is how it applies to the press covering two stories. The first relates to computer hackers stealing the database of a website devoted to marital infidelity called Ashley Madison (it’s a dating service for married people to meet other adulterers, arguably the most awful idea since King David’s nightly peeping Tom sessions with Bathsheba on the palace roof).

Thousands of subscribers had their secret commitment to infidelity bared to public scrutiny, with websites set up overnight to search the data for email addresses or other details. This led writer Emily Dreyfuss at Wired Magazine to preface her article on “how to check if you or a loved one” is in the database with this supplication: “Wait. Stop. Don’t do this.”

But the tabloid press couldn’t help themselves, and the first “hit” they got was none other than scandal-plagued Josh Duggar, formerly of TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting.” Of course, there could be thousands of husbands and wives who have checked on their spouses and found the scarlet letter staring back from their computer displays, but those don’t matter because they’re not “news.”

Duggar, an outspoken Christian, and now, by his own words, “the biggest hypocrite ever,” is important enough to share headline space with Jared Fogle, the former Subway spokesman facing jail time for child pornography. These stories have dominated the mainstream media for days.

People talking without speaking. People hearing without listening.

The story you haven’t seen on ABC, NBC, CBS, or CNN is the continuing release of heartbreaking and shocking videos chronicling Planned Parenthood and its “partners” in fetal tissue sales and distribution casually discussing everything from the price of an aborted baby’s liver to how a baby’s brain is best harvested when the heart is still beating (meaning—it’s alive).

The utter disgust and visceral revulsion that most people feel seeing these videos is enough to force heads to look away from the screen. It’s enough to spur liberal, pro-choice syndicated columnist, Harvard graduate, and frequent NPR commentator Ruben Navarrette, Jr. to write “As I’ve only realized lately, to be a man, and to declare yourself pro-choice, is to proclaim your neutrality. And, as I’ve only recently been willing to admit, even to myself, that’s another name for ‘wimping out.’”

The mainstream media is doing more than “wimping out” on the Planned Parenthood holocaust. It’s actively participating in keeping the story squashed, replacing it with salacious details of the fall of House Duggar and Jared Fogle’s squalid pedophilia.

Since the release of the first video by the Center for Medical Progress (you can find these videos on YouTube, both the edited and completely raw footage), the three major networks (ABC, NBC and CBS) have devoted a total of 1 minute and 13 seconds to showing these videos with audio (0.008 percent of total airtime spent on news) as of August 18, according to the Media Research Center.

Meanwhile, the songs of a million and a quarter babies a year will never be shared, and the sounds of silence of more than 50 million cribs will continue to burn a hole in our national conscience (with a half billion taxpayer dollars provided to the nation’s largest abortion provider each year), while the press dares not disturb the sound of silence.

Published in the Houston Home Journal 8/26/15.