I Told You So, Part 2 of This Year's MSM Coverage of the March for Life

Well, I guess I should have gone a little farther & checked out CBS. If I had I would have found out just how far CBS News has sunk as well.

It turns out that CBS did do some coverage of the events on 23 January. But, as was pointed out by 2 blogs, CBS News exclusively focused on the pro-abort side, looking at the few of them that were there & initially ignoring the huge Pro-life side. (ninjas stealthy creep past media reporters at the annual March For Life… , CBS: Only abortion proponents attended the March for Life also covered by Newsbusters: CBS's DC Website: Only 'Pro-Choice Activists' Showed Up For Roe Anniversary ) The initial slide show consisted of 7 pictures, all of the small pro-abort crowd. Since then they have updated it to show 7 pictures. That must be CBS' idea of fair & balanced, eventually finding an equal number of pro-lifers & putting them up, but only later on. I will give CBS 1 bit of credit, they called the Pro-life side Pro-life instead of anti-abortion or anti-choice. But if it weren't for some of the pictures that show the few pro-abort protestors, you wouldn't know what the choice they are in favor of was.

I can see why CBS didn't want to put up pictures of the Pro-life side, they show, even without mentioning the numbers, how few pro-aborts were there, & how huge the Pro-life crowds were.

That wasn't the only example of bias I have come across. Besides the article I laready mentioned, Newsbusters also has a piece that points out how biased the Washington post coverage was as well. Ther story did make the front page of the metro section, below the fold. Given that this was a national protest, not a local one it should have been in the national news, not the metro. But even if you could justify the metro section, why wasn't it the headline since 400,000 Pro-lifers Marched? I think we all know the answer to that. It would show which side is winning. Instead, they paint the numbers as being more or less equal.

The article did much more than downplay the Pro-life side, it used the article as a forum to attack the Catholic Church. Here is how Post reporter Katherine Driessen describes what the Catholic Church is doing (emphasis mine): "The Catholic Church has increasingly focused on educating and mobilizing its youth base around its antiabortion ideology." She went on to use this quote from Cardinal Wuerl: “'The youth are at the heart of this,' said Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington, who spoke at the Verizon Center on Monday. 'They are just so important to us. We try to get them energized with that passion in the morning.'” Later she added: "With another presidential election looming, many antiabortion advocates at the event said educating youths in their ideology is more important than ever." Finally: "Group chaperone Karina Franco, 37, said this was the first real education in antiabortion ideology* for most of the youths, some of whom reacted strongly at a conference Sunday when they looked at images of fetuses." At best they make it sound like the young people are being indoctrinated. At worst, brainwashed. I am honestly surprized she even used the words educating & education to describe what was going on. That aside, why should the Catholic Church teach these children the truth about abortion? What the Church teaches isn't merely an ideology on a par with any other political ideology.
Next up, the anti-Catholic bias is focusing on how this indoctrination is developing extremists. (emphasis mine) "Mendoza’s brother, Jesse, 14, carried the most controversial of the signs. Not-so-jokingly referred to as the 'extremist' of the group, Jesse had drawn a fetus and gushing blood on his sign. Jesse wanted to attend the rally last year but was told he was too young. This year, he was the one who started the groups on chants such as 'Jesus' and 'Obama, your mama chose life.'” We see what Driessen's idea of an extremist is, someone who draws a picture that shows what abortion actually does to an unborn baby. But even before that he "Not-so-jokingly" comment is meant to clearly make things sound worse than they are. & chanting "Jesus" makes him an extremist. By her standards what does that make the Pope? & the quote about Obama is a pure fact. None of what he did is truly extremist. Jesse may speak out strongly on his views, but nothing he says or does is truly extremism. & she knows it. 
But the Post doesn't stop there in its efforts to paint the Pro-life side, & especially the Catholic Church as the villians. The online photo montage continues this theme. Let's start with the picture of Sister Fran of the Salesian Sisters in Newton, N.J.

It describes her as criticizing "an abortion rights advocate at the March for Life."
Then there is this picture of Sara Brook, of Missouri:

She is described as  an antiabortion advocate, showing how she "points her finger at an abortion rights advocate."
Next up is the picture of Josh Estes, that they describe as an "antiabortion advocate". The caption says that he is shouting at "abortion rights advocates in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C." At least they did show some "abortion rights advocates" shouting back.  & this is the most peaceful "clash" I have ever seen.
On the other hand we see this photo of Lauren Croll, abortion supporter, looking like she is in tears.

 "What did those horrible anti-aborts do to her?" is the implied question.
Additionally, almost all of the other pictures of "Antiabortion protesters" make it look like this was merely a Catholic protest only. Even though it isn't totally clear, we can recognize the Knights of Columbus logo here. Here we see a picture of Our Lady of Guadeloupe in the background.  Here & here we see people praying the Rosary.
So we see the Post not so subtlely painting the March for Life as a bunch of Catholics who have no qualms against yelling & shouting & driving their opponants to tears while doing so. It is implied that any clashes are the result of the actions of the "anti-aborts"  & if the abortion rights are shouting back, it is simply to get their voices heard.
Another thing to notice is how the pictures show that both sides are about equal in number rather than any photos that truly show the huge number of Pro-lifers. On the other hand, probably almost every pro-abort that was there was in the photos shown of them.
None of the pictures in & of themselves are bad. But how do we know the Pro-lifers were shouting at the pro-aborts? They could be responding to a chant. Or yelling at a friend. & as for the 2 pointing their fingers, anyone pointing their finger can be made to look wild eyed when they are passionate about the truth. But you can be sure that isn't what the Post wants people to think.
Instead, they are trying to implant the idea that the Catholic Church is developing a bunch of wild-eyed automatons by indoctrinating the next generation to blindly follow what it teaches about abortion.
If they were truly interested in presenting an acurate picture, we would see stories about the women & men from Silent No More sharing their stories. We would see stories about the real numbers of Pro-lifers as opposed to pro-aborts. We would see stories about how main stream, how anything but extreme, how it is not only Catholics the Pro-life movement is about. We would see the truth, that those 400,000 people there are the main stream, are the real America. But that would mean they would have to admit they are the extremists, not us.
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*I want to point out that she doesn't actually quote what Karina Franco says, Driessen gives her take on it. I would suspect that the actual quote by Franco was something quite different. I say this from personal experience of how the press has twisted what I say by taking what I said out of context or summarizing it like in this case. I suspect Franco said something more on the lines about this is the 1st real education on what abortion is really about & why it is wrong.