MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said the following about the mainstream news media’s lack of coverage of the undercover videos that show Planned Parenthood officials talking about selling aborted baby body parts:
“You know, I got to say of all the areas where I think there is media bias, I think the greatest area is on this issue [abortion] I think most reporters do the best job they can do and they try to be as fair as possible.”
But when it come to the issue of abortion, there is the greatest built-in bias. And it is completely cultural bias, it is unintended.
[I]f the roles were reversed … there is a group on the right doing what Planned Parenthood has done on the Left and is described on the Left, there would be Justice Department — there would be indictments already going down.”
Two abortion protesters went to a clinic to educate women entering. They held graphic signs of aborted children. Whether you agree with this type of picketing or not (and I agree that a case can be made against it) it is notable that the local paper misled its readers as to the pair’s activities. From the article:
“It was erroneously implied that Dorothy and Judy are displaying graphic images to elementary school students located “right around the corner,” however the signs are on the 3300 block of 67th street and the school is at 6901 Nashville, over half a mile away….
The news coverage said:
Tony Thornton, CEO of Planned Parenthood, which is not affiliated with the abortion clinic, was also interviewed. He said he doesn’t care which side of the fence people are on, “I don’t think children should be subjected to this, the protesters have a target audience and it shouldn’t be the children.”….
Of course the target audience was not the children. But the newspaper apparently did not care about accuracy.
The news reporter finished her story by saying, “Some cities have ordinances against protesting on school grounds, but this isn’t the case in Lubbock.”…
Dorothy Boyett, has contacted the station demanding a retraction. “This broadcast left viewers with the impression that we were actually on school grounds” she told a representative of the station. “We have never gone to an elementary school and have no plans to do so. The signs save babies’ lives…”
“Any story I write about abortion instigates a flood of emails from angry anti-choicers, complaining about my so-called bias. Often they’re complaining about being called antichoice.”
Kristen Philipkoski, biotech reporter, Wired magazine
Gloria Feldt The War on Choice: The Right-Wing Attack on Women’s Rights and How to Fight Back (New York: Bantam Dell, 2004) 183
Of course. Because using the word “anti-choice” is not biased at all
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Operation Rescue organized masses sit ins at abortion clinics, were pro-lifers attempted to prevent women and close the clinics and force the clinics to shut down. Operation Rescue’s actions garnered a lot of media attention, but most of it was negative. At one event, Randall Terry, the head of Operation Rescue, displayed an aborted baby to the media and tried to get them to photograph it in order to convey the reality of abortion:
15 weeks – legal to abort in every US state and all throughout Canada
He said:
“Do you have the integrity to show the people of Wichita the truth? This little child abolishes the proabortion arguments. I challenge you to show this baby. It’s reality.”…
None of the local television stations ran footage of the aborted baby. According to an article:
“No, no, no, no,” said Matthew Salkind, news director at KAKE–TV, Ch. 10. “I would not let us do that. I can’t see any point to that. Everybody gets the point without seeing something that graphic.”
Bob Yuna, news director at KSNW–TV, Ch. 3, said, “We chose not to run the picture of the purported fetus.”
Officials at KWCH–TV, Ch. 12, could not be reached for comment.
David Merritt Jr., editor of the Wichita Eagle, also declined comment.”
Julie Lundstrom Thomas “Abortion Foes’ Leader Says Media Lying” Wichita Eagle July 19, 1991
For young pro-lifers who grew up after the Internet became accessible and available, it is hard to imagine how difficult it was to spread the pro-life message in the past. It was very hard to reach people with the facts about abortion. In the 90s, I was lucky if I gave a talk and spread the pro-life message to 30 people in a month. Now this website, clinicquotes, has 1500 visitors a day. It’s amazing how the Internet has changed things – now the facts about abortion are accessible to everyone. Pro-lifers should make use of this tool.
Author Faye D Ginsburg said the following in 1989:
“The media in general gives disproportionate attention to violence and conflates those who carry out that activity with the [Pro-life]movement as a whole. It is not only that violence makes a good story that sells newspapers. The profession of journalism is dominated by liberals who favor a pro-choice position. Not surprisingly, the more extreme and reprehensible pro-life activities that paint the movement in the worst light receive the most coverage.”
Faye D Ginsburg Contested Lives: the Abortion Debate in an American Community (Berkeley and Los Angeles California: University of California Press, 1989) 52
In the 1980s – 1990s, coverage of the abortion issue was extremely biased. It still is – and this is evidenced by how few media outlets covered the Gosnells trial – but it was much much worse back in the day. I have always believed that the Internet is one of the major reasons why there are fewer abortions today and why the pro-life movement is stronger, much stronger, that was in the 1990s when I was first getting involved. People now have access to news and information that was not available when the major news sources were able to control all the information that people got. Now sites like Live Action, Lifenews, Life Site News, etc. give information to thousands and thousands of people a day. This website gets around 1500 visits a day, and the information on it reaches far more people than I could ever reach without the Internet. But the media bias is still a problem.
When laws against partial-birth abortion were being debated, a Christian group tried to run an ad in Florida newspapers with a diagram of the procedure, a Scripture quote, and a quote from the dissenting opinion in the original court case.
Drawing of partial-birth abortion
The Orlando Sentinel agreed to run the ad for $1242 but then changed the price to $5,000 dollars and said there could be no diagrams or text of dissenting opinion.
They said the ad was:
“too graphic and controversial.”
The Florida Keys Keynoter also refused the ad.
“Partial Birth Abortion Ad Censored by Florida Newspapers” Cybercast News Service, July 14, 2000
19 weeks – partial-birth abortions were usually done at this stage or laterShare on Facebook
From an article in The Human Life Review about how media outlets often only present the pro-choice viewpoint, and often disseminate false information:
“The reason that so many liberals are ready to believe and disseminate the lies of the abortion industry is not that abortion has any inherent connection to liberalism but because liberals and abortion advocates belong to the same ethnic group. One day, after hearing on the radio some pretty long excerpts from a speech by a NARAL official, I listened for an opposing view. Hearing none, I called the station manager and asked why he didn’t put on a differing opinion, one from the pro-life side. His reply was that “we don’t have these people on our Rolodex.”
“Why They Help Them Lie.”, By: McKenna, George, Human Life Review, 00979783, Spring2001, Vol. 27, Issue 2
Marc Lamont Hill, a Columbia University professor known for his frequent appearance on Fox News
“For what it’s worth, I do think that those of us on the Left have made a decision not to cover this trial because we worry that it’ll compromise abortion rights… Whether you agree with abortion or not, I do think there’s a direct connection between the media’s failure to cover this and our own political commitments on the Left… I think it’s a bad idea…I think it’s [the bias is] dangerous, but I think that’s the way it is.”
