Category: Media Bias

William Brennan wrote about two articles that appeared in the New York Times on the same day, right next to each other.  One was about an abortion case where a doctor killed a baby close to birth. The other was about the deaths of birds.

The contrast between the two of them shows how twisted society has become since Roe Vs. Wade:

“The ironclad tenacity of the press’s schizophrenic attitude toward destruction was flagrantly displayed in two editorials which appeared next to one another in the New York Times of February 19, 1975.

The first commentary, entitled “Abortion Error” expresses considerable dismay over the conviction of Dr. Kenneth C Edelin for manslaughter in the case of a late-term abortion [that witnesses say led the live birth of a baby who was then killed]. The decision of the jury is characterized as “a blow not only to physicians who perform legal abortions but also to the women who need these operations or may need then in the future.” The Times editorial cites “the historic Supreme Court verdict legalizing abortion” as a basis for predicting the reversal Dr. Edelin’s conviction, but still bemoans the fact that “the damage done to the cause of rational abortion may be much harder to undo than the conviction itself.”

(“Abortion Error” New York Times February 19, 1974, p 34)

Immediately following upon the heels of the preceding editorial is one with an entirely different slant entitled “Bird Massacre.” The United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is taken to task for having “upheld the legality of killing millions of starlings, grackles, and red-winged blackbirds that roost near military installations in Kentucky and Tennessee.” Other culprits identified are the city of Paducah, Kentucky and the Army for initiating a policy of spraying the birds “with a detergent that removes protective oil from their feathers, causing them to die.” The writer does not hesitate to emphasize that “the poignant spectacle of millions of dead and dying birds ought to make Army and municipal officials reconsider this hideous project, particularly as they cannot achieve their objectives by this mass slaughter.” Plans generated for dealing with the birds are likened to “the kind of repeated bird massacres that exterminated the once common passenger pigeon”.…

(“Bird Massacre” The New York Times February 19, 1975, p34)

To the Times semanticists, the killing of unborn humans is simply a matter of “legal abortion,” “these operations,” “an action” or “rational abortion.” The killing of birds, on the other hand, is saturated with such concepts as “bird massacres,” “killing,” “the slaughter,” “dead and dying birds,” “hideous project,” “mass slaughter,” and “exterminated.”

The words used to describe the deaths of birds contrast starkly with the words used to describe abortions.

William Brennan The Abortion Holocaust: Today’s Final Solution (St. Louis, Missouri, 1983) 157

Which is worse? The deaths of babies (like these) or the deaths of birds?

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Pro-lifer William Brennan tells the following story illustrating media bias:

“On April 24 and 25, 1981, 8 medical scientists testified before a Senate subcommittee convened to examine the nature of intra-uterine existence and it beginnings. 7 of them provided compelling scientific-based evidence that the entity within the womb is an actual human being from conception onward. Only one individual, Yale University geneticist Dr. Leon E. Rosenberg, portrayed the beginning of life before birth and therefore the humanness of the unborn as simply a “question” and not a “scientific matter.”

An article which appeared in the New York Times of April 25, 1981, included not only extensive coverage of Dr. Rosenberg’s remarks, but also his picture. None of the testimony of those who presented the scientific case for the humanity of the unborn was quoted. Dr. Rosenberg was described in glowing terms: “one of the nation’s leading geneticists” and “chairman of the department of Medicine and former president of the American Society of Human Genetics.

In contrast, the article contains little or no information whatsoever about the outstanding credentials and achievements of the 7 scientists who contradicted Dr. Rosenberg’s excursions into mythology, especially Dr. Jerome Lejeune, Professor of Fundamental Genetics at the University René Descartes in Paris. Not only is Dr. Lejeune regarded by many as the world’s leading geneticist, his achievements are considered so monumental that he had even been nominated for a Nobel prize. Obviously, this is the kind of information a reporter finds it convenient to omit, particularly when it is so potentially disruptive to the overriding image being projected of the unborn as a question rather than a human being.”

William Brennan The Abortion Holocaust: Today’s Final Solution (St. Louis, Missouri, 1983)

The article Brennan is referring to is Bernard Weinraub “Senator Agrees to Extend Hearings on Abortion Bill” New York Times April 25, 1981, p 7

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The late former abortionist Dr. Bernard Nathanson cofounded NARAL, the country’s first pro-abortion organization. In the years before Roe V Wade, NARAL worked to legalize abortion in the states. Years later, after working to make abortion legal and performing or supervising over 60,000 abortions, Dr. Nathanson became pro-life. In this quote, he talks about how he and his fellow pro-choice activists got the media on their side:

“We, of course, stroked the media shamelessly. We played on them. We took them out to lunch. We wined them and dined them and gave them all sorts of exclusives…We were embarked on what looked like a historic crusade, a sweeping social revolution, and they loved it.”

Bernard N Nathanson, Featured Address, Missouri Citizens for Life Convention, 1981, Columbia, Missouri, May 2, 1981

Quoted in:  William Brennan The Abortion Holocaust: Today’s Final Solution (St. Louis, Missouri, 1983)

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Editor Gilbert Millstein said that NBC news considers the phrase “pro-life” to “loaded” for inclusion in new stories, but added:

“If someone wanted to use “pro-choice,” I’d say that was fine.”

Robert Levy “The Code Words in the Battle over Abortion” Boston Globe November 21, 1980, P. 13

The vast majority of news outlets do not use the term “pro-life” and substitute “anti-abortion,” but call those in favor of abortion by the term they prefer- “pro-choice.”

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Pro-life author Troy Clark says:

“Research commissioned by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops studied a four year period from 1992-1995. Three shooting incidents by anti-abortionists drew 1,110 stories in seven national print and network outlets. Yet, thirteen documented cases of pro-abortionist violent incidents attracted only 59 stories in the same news outlets.

Only four stories covered how Daniel Mahoney became the first pro-abortionist to be indicted for threatening to kill workers at a crisis pregnancy center under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.”

Troy Clark, Ph.D. Abortion Every 90 Seconds: The Whole Story (Kindle, 2015)

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This is from an old article, but media bias is still a problem for the pro-life movement.

Ethan Bronner, then a reporter for the Boston Globe, said:

“I think that when abortion opponents complain about a bias in the newsroom against their cause, they’re absolutely right.”

Bronner cited a story of his own on late-term abortions in which he had to fight a copy editor to retain such language as “destroying” the unborn by “crushing forming skulls and bones.”

Bronner said the editor told him, “As far as I’m concerned, until that thing is born, it is really no different from a kidney, it is part of the woman’s body.”

Dave Andrusko “An Insightful Look At Media Bias” NRL News July 12, 1990

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Alex S Jones, former New York Times reporter:

“Reporters as a group tend to be pro-choice, and pro-life advocates have long complained that these biases have skewed the way the story is reported.”

Alex Jones Losing the News: The Future of the News That Feeds Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009) 91

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Susanne Millsaps, executive director of the Utah Chapter of the pro-abortion group  NARAL:

“The media has been our best friend in this fight. They claim objectivity, but I know they’re all pro-choice.”

Quoted in the Washington Times, March 13, 1991. Also quoted in Voices for the Unborn (Feasterville, Pennsylvania), October 1991, page 4.

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Pro-lifer Rev. Richard Welch talked about a demonstration he attended:

“I went with my mother and a group of about 4000 pro-lifers and we staged a protest outside the Statehouse in Annapolis.… There were about 5 or 6 people there, who we would now characterize as feminist extremists, who were protesting in favor of abortion.

That night something would happen that I never forgot. On the evening news, 75% of the coverage went to those 4 or 5 proabortionists. All of the interviews were with them, and they even filmed them in such a way that the large group of pro-lifers in the background appeared to be with them.

The reporters outright lied: they said that there were as many proabortion demonstrators as there were pro-lifers. I presumed that what you saw on TV was the truth. It completely changed the way I viewed the American media… Since that time, I’ve had many experiences where the press purposely lied about the abortion issue. Many people don’t realize what they are getting when they watch the evening news – even on shows with allegedly high standards, such as “60 minutes,” where many of the segments are staged and set up.”

Rev. Richard Welch blood of the martyrs: The Journey of a Catholic Priest To the Rescue Movement (Gaithersburg, Maryland: Human Life International, 1994) 9 – 10

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