By Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director, Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation
In his new book, Suppression, Deception, Snobbery, and Bias: Why the Press Gets So Much Wrong—And Just Doesn’t Care, former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer makes a strong case about how the mainstream media fails to present the truth on a host of issues.
One of those timely topics is abortion. Fleischer conducted a poll of viewers of CNN and Fox News and readers of the New York Times. The results were startling.
Fleischer’s findings stand in sharp contrast to the manner in which many media outlets approach the issue of abortion.
Fleisher asked, “Does the Constitution guarantee a citizen the right to have an abortion?”
He noted that “the results were interesting.” Why? “Majorities everywhere said no.”
While readers of the New York Times were “most inclined” to “see a Constitutional guarantee,” the respondents supported the idea by a narrow minority—48 percent. Only 40 percent of CNN viewers thought there was a Constitutional right to abortion, while a paltry 32 percent of Fox News viewers asserted such a right.
And yet, reporters routinely claim a vast majority of the public views abortion as a Constitutional right. This demonstrates the media’s own bias on the subject while denying the actual honest beliefs of the electorate.
This is why alternative news sources such as National Right to Life News are so important. News about the human rights issue of our time—abortion—is presented without the pro-abortion bias found at mainstream media outlets.
It is indeed refreshing to learn about a host of pro-life topics in an atmosphere that does not reek of slavish adherence to abortion industry doctrine.
We can encourage our sons and daughters to write and pursue the truth about the life issues, realizing that the post-Roe generation has the best opportunity to reverse our nation’s cultural decline. It is in this next generation that our hope lies.