Shhhh. 300,000+ people chanted, yelled and sung their way into Washington D.C. but somehow snuck past the mainstream media without their notice. Congratulations to the ordinary ministers of the media!
Now, I could’ve missed it but after searching it seems to me that The New York Times completely ignored the throngs of people walking with signs towards the Capitol. I’m sure they would’ve been noticed if their signs mentioned Gitmo. MSNBC, according to their website, had no stories on the march. CBS News had nothing.
And even when some of the ordinary ministers of the media did notice, the results were comical.
Poor Rick Sanchez of CNN was confused. The poor dear couldn’t figure out who was marching in…THE MARCH FOR LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sanchez reported, according to Newsbusters:
“It’s the 37th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade case….both sides being represented today, but it does appear to me, as I look at these signs that – which side is represented the most….Do we know?”
And yet the Washington Post, no friend of the pro-life movement, reported:
“Few counter-demonstrators were visible along the route.”
Were they at the same rally?
But Sanchez wasn’t alone.
While a recent survey revealed that 6 out of ten young people are pro-life Newsweek’s Krista Gesaman worried that the age of the pro-life marchers was so advanced she asked:
“Where are the young, vibrant women supporting their pro-life or pro-choice positions? Likely, they’re at home.”
Has she been to the March for Life? I’m always amazed as to how many young people there are there. According to reports 550 young students were there from Catholic University of America alone as well as 370 from Notre Dame. And dozens of other colleges were represented similarly.
The AP, according to Gateway Pundit, said the March for Life was only three blocks long even though Michael Novak watched the march and said he watched for nearly three hours as the march just kept streaming up the street.
But we’ve long since quit depending on the media to get our message out. Over 49,000 blogs wrote about the March for Life. EWTN and other Catholic media covered the march extensively. Lifesite and LifeNews.com as always, do their admirable work.
So what I’m saying is that while some of us bloggers sometimes feel like our little blogs can’t change the world. I would argue that it may be the only thing that can.
January 25, 2010 at 3:27 am
Fox News reported on the March For Life on Shepard Smith's news report on Friday. Also on Saturday's news, they interviewed Fr. Frank Pavone with the Priests For Life.
January 25, 2010 at 5:02 am
NBC Washington did report that "March For Life could snarl traffic Friday".
Whew! Glad they were Johnny-on-the-spot for that one!
January 25, 2010 at 6:07 am
A perfect example to show how main stream media can "re-create" an opinion and then prove it to be 'real'.
Congratulations to you for your take on this subject. I'm using this as a spelendid example for Media bias in my communication session this week!
Castilino (Hyderabad, India)
January 25, 2010 at 9:06 am
I followed the March For Life by EWTN. It was a very huge crowd! An event to be covered by international media. In Brazil, no news about it…
January 25, 2010 at 10:14 am
CNN had nothing to say, nada, zilch, since it seems they were in Haiti — the whole kit and kaboodle? Unlikely.
January 25, 2010 at 10:38 am
Just so there's no question, I qualify as pro-choice, however, I would not vote against a candidate because they were pro-life. So, just so there's now question where I'm coming from.
I'm sure that there is some level of the stated bias going on here, but I would argue that more of what is going on here is that news is no longer about an informed public, rather it is fundamentally about selling advertisement. And what sells is drama, and I don't know how things are in the news cycle in the U.S. right now as I'm currently living in the UK, but right now, here, everything is dominated by reports of Haiti. Not to be too cynical, and with all due respect to the people suffering there, nothing sells advert spots like a humanitarian crisis of biblical scale.
So I would suggest that on a slow news day, the march would have gotten some real coverage…and maybe a lot more coverage than what it did get.
As for bias, in the march up to the invasion of Iraq, hundreds of thousands of people across the U.S. marched and protested. I remember these marches getting less than 30 seconds on most news shows at the time. If there was a true liberal media bias, there should have been much more coverage at the time.
I would also like to take you to task for your over-simplified statistic of 6 out of 10 "young people" being pro-life. Can you please elaborate: source, what is the definition of a young person, is that voters, or non-voters. I know it is a blog, but good sourcing of such facts shouldn't suffer. Please add links to sources when possible.
January 25, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Source was probably http://www.kofc.org/un/eb/en/news/polls/index.html which reports that a new poll shows 58% of those age 18-29 consider abortion "morally wrong."
January 25, 2010 at 1:11 pm
Anonymous from 5:38 am:
Had it been a march of 10,000 pro-aborters with a few celebrities in the mix, it would have gotten prominent coverage from all the networks, with live coverage from CNN and MSNBC. You would have heard things like "strong support for a woman's right to choose", "filling the streets" and other such like. The media chooses to cover what fits their template.
January 25, 2010 at 1:14 pm
It was a phenomenal turn out! I don't have numbers, but I was there and like Mr. Novak..the people just kept coming. At the top of Capital Hill you could look down and it was just amazing, the amount of people that were behind us in the march. There will never be adequate coverage of the march in the mainstream media..Haiti earthquake or not, there has never been accurate reporting on the march in the msm. Perhaps the msm anchors will be part of the march when they get a little older and realize their very lives are in danger. With assisted suicide and euthansia being legalized around the world..it is only a matter of time before they realize this is about life not only from conception but also until natural death. When there imminent demise in front of them they may begin to wonder why they never marched before.
January 25, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Don't be so obtuse Mr. Archbold. Don't imitate the blindness of the media. They're not making mistakes in their reporting, they're making the news. They're crafting the news.
What they're doing is promoting their view of how the march for life should be, rather than what it actually is.
They want young women to believe they would be alone if they attended this march, they want hesitant would-be marchers to believe they are not really the majority and that this is an endless battle so therefore not worth fighting. Making peace instead becomes an act of staying home.
Make no mistake. The media is deliberate.
January 25, 2010 at 2:34 pm
I watched the march on EWTN (I sent my wife and 2 daughters since I couldn't make it) and switched over to FoxNews now and then. FoxNews was covering a dog in 6 to 8 inches of rushing water in the LA River.
I can't believe that this is news worthy of coverage with helicopters while the March for Life gets barely a nod from them.
January 25, 2010 at 2:36 pm
This was the only article (column, really) that I came across that I thought gave an accurate portrayal of the March. The author seems impressed and a little worried by the strength of the pro-life movement (though he does seem to underestimate the number of people there – "tens of thousands" when I think we were many more).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/23/AR2010012302400.html
January 25, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Anyone know how many marchers were at the West Coast March For Life? I'm pressed for time – otherwise I'd search for the # myself. Thanks!
January 25, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Larry,
I saw estimates of 20-35K on jillstanek.com
January 25, 2010 at 2:59 pm
I think I can explain what happened on Friday.
Clearly, 300,000 elderly pro-life ninjas slipped through D.C. completely unnoticed by the citizens and the media.
Obviously.
January 25, 2010 at 3:05 pm
@Jess: YESSS!
January 25, 2010 at 3:05 pm
I was there, and I didn't see a single counter-demonstrator, and I walked through a large segment of the crowd. That of course doesn't mean that there weren't any at all, but I noted the noticeable lack of counter-demonstrators to a friend, and he said there were much fewer than there had been in previous years.
January 25, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Jess,
I wish I thought of the ninja line. Really funny.
January 25, 2010 at 3:40 pm
I wish I could have gone 🙁 Went every year for seven or eight and when I moved to NC I haven't been able to get back up there! It really is aggravating how little they cover it, but luckily we usually have lots of photographic evidence of the hundreds of thousands that come every year!! And it just keeps getting bigger!
January 25, 2010 at 5:11 pm
We hear these same complaints about media bias year after year.
Someone isn't doing their jobs. But who?
The MSM has a whole world to cover. The pro-life movement has leaders who are paid to promote the pro-life cause. If the MSM isn't hearing about us, I'd say the latter group is at fault.
Who was running the PR for the March? We can't just drop off a press release and assume we merit coverage, we have to fight for it and befriend journalists and producers. Yes, even some of the hostile ones!