When the Oklahoma City bombing captured the attention of the mainstream media, some women's rights activists expected that the attack would end mainstream media's reluctance to report on violence against abortion-providers and other domestic terror threats. That reasonable hope was dashed. With its first reporting of the Oklahoma story, the New York Times (4/20/95) ran a list headlined "Other Bombings in America", which spanned four decades and included some attacks that claimed no injuries or lives. But none of the 40 officially documented bombings that have targeted women's clinics in that period was mentioned. Media investigations of where right-wing militants [...]
Nov
01
1994
Media Turned Population Debate Into Pope vs. Veep
From the Women's Desk
"The Cairo Conference will probably be remembered as the Great Abortion Showdown," exclaimed a Wall Street Journal report (9/13/94) as the International Conference on Population and Development drew to a close this September. But whose fault is that? For all the "isn't it a shame" tone of journalistic commentary, most of the mainstream media allowed that debate to dominate coverage of Cairo. United Nations conferences are bureaucratic affairs; the anti-contraception dogma of the Pope against a most-of-the-world, pro-choice chorus provided a dramatic angle on the "Clash of Wills in Cairo", headlined Time magazine (9/12/94); "Population Wars", U.S. News & World [...]
Oct
01
1994
Anti-Abortion Terrorists on TV
On December 8, 1993, Nightline gave Paul Hill an extended platform to advocate the killing of doctors who perform abortions, unchallenged by any pro-choice perspective. On July 29, 1994, Hill allegedly murdered Dr. John Britton and his escort at a Florida clinic. FAIR warned after Paul Hill's Nightline appearance of the dangers of turning proponents of murder into media celebrities (Extra! Update, 2/94). But despite the murder of Britton and his escort--the latest in a series of violent acts against abortion providers--advocates of anti-abortion terrorism are still able to use media to promote their cause. NBC's Today show on August [...]
Sep
01
1994
Is Murder Moral?
Executive Director's Column
By Jeff Cohen
It was shocking, but hardly surprising, when Paul Hill was arrested for the killing of a doctor and his escort outside a Pensacola, Fla., abortion clinic on July 29. After all, the former minister had been advocating such action on national TV for more than a year. Appearing as a guest on CNN's Sonya Live (3/8/94), Hill hailed the man who had murdered abortion provider Dr. David Gunn as a hero "willing to lay down" his life to fulfill "the commandment of Christ." Host Sonya Friedman responded by seeming to question Hill's commitment to action: "But Mr. Hill, indeed, you [...]
Feb
01
1994
Koppel's 'Tough Question': Should Doctors Be Killed?
Nightline's December 8, 1993 program was a prime example of imbalanced, irresponsible journalism. The issue was the killing of doctors who perform abortions: not how it can be prevented, but whether such attacks are justified. Invited into the studio to discuss this "issue" were Helen Alvare, a representative of the Catholic Bishops Pro-Life Committee, an anti-abortion group, and Paul Hill, the director of a tiny anti-abortion faction called Defensive Action, which advocates the killing of doctors. No one with a pro-choice viewpoint was allowed to participate in the live discussion. (The three soundbites from pro-choice sources in the pre-recorded portion [...]
Apr
01
1993
SoundBites
Second Opinion Being a terrorism expert means never having to say you're sorry. After the World Trade Center bombing, Steven Emerson of CNN's Special Assignment Unit filed an "exclusive report" (3/2/93) announcing that unnamed "law enforcement officials...suspect the bomber or bombers may be from one of the former Yugoslav republics." Three days later, after Mohammed Salameh was arrested in connection with the bombing, Emerson was writing for the Wall Street Journal op-ed page (3/5/93) as an expert on the radical Islamic fundamentalist threat. The disappearance of the Serbian menace was not explained. 'Collision of Causes'? On March 6, the New [...]
Sep
01
1992
The Great Abortion 'Compromise'
By Neil DeMause
If there is one image that has come to epitomize the abortion debate, it is pro-choice and anti-abortion demonstrators shouting at each other, brandishing placards. Mainstream media specializes in "extremists of both ends" coverage, bemoaning the "angry rhetoric" of both sides. The search for "compromise" has long been a staple of abortion reporting, and in recent months, with the Supreme Court's decision on the fate of Roe v. Wade imminent, the media seemed to have stepped up their efforts. In February and March, several outlets ran positive profiles of the "common-ground movement," founded in St. Louis to promote dialogue between [...]
Aug
01
1992
Abortion Coverage Leaves Women out of the Picture
As a background graphic for reports on abortion, TV has sometimes used a depiction of a late-term fetus hanging in space, with no connection to a pregnant woman. The "floating fetus" logo is in sync with the media's tendency to push women out of the public's mental picture of the abortion issue. In recent years, national media have heavily covered the issue of abortion. In 1989 and 1990, close to 1500 articles on abortion appeared in major dailies; the weeklies -- Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report -- have featured stories on abortion more regularly than any other social [...]
