Local media coverage of the United States Supreme Court decision in McCullen v. Coakley — which struck down the 2007 Massachusetts law imposing a thirty-five foot so-called buffer zone around Bay State abortion clinics — provided compelling evidence of the intense, reflexive, and seemingly pervasive bias of the news media, both print and electronic, when it comes any issue which touches the third rail of liberal politics, abortion.
BOSTON TELEVISION:
WBZ-TV, Channel Four in Boston, began its story with grim looking anchors announcing that they would present reaction “to this devastating ruling.” Without any comment from the successful plaintiffs, or from experts in constitutional law, CBS4 went right to Martha Coakley and Planned Parenthood President Marty Walz.
Perhaps, even more egregious was the lapse of journalistic ethics by WFXT-TV, FOX 25 Boston, which resurrected ancient, out of state video footage showing people being carried away by police from an apparent sit-in in front of an unidentified building in an unidentified location. Viewers watching this might reasonably conclude that pro-life activists were currently blockading abortuaries in the Commonwealth.
A careful examination of the videotape however, reveals that the police are wearing brown, black striped deputy sheriff’s uniforms, unknown to Massachusetts police departments. Moreover, the quality of the footage suggested it was more than twenty years old.
Immediately after Marty Walz claimed on camera that pro-lifers were standing shoulder to shoulder obstructing clinic entrances, FOX 25 ran video of demonstrators holding pro-life signs crowded together. Just then a transit bus, painted cream with a red belt, passes in front of the crowd. Needless to say, neither the MBTA nor any RTA (Regional Transit Authority) in Massachusetts uses such a color scheme.
THE BOSTON GLOBE:
The Boston Globe’s response was predictable, tendentiously so. As soon as the ruling was announced on June 26th, there came the expected editorial alleging “circus-like protests around Planned Parenthood’s Boston clinic…”, “unruly protests,” and attempts to “impede and harass women…” The editorial ended with a call for new legislation to restrict the pro-life presence on the sidewalks in front of the clinics.
The paper’s editorial was restrained in comparison with the hysterical Joanna Weiss column which accompanied it. Weiss, using the kind of language one would expect from a hate group, made the following characterization: “the stereotypical abortion protester — foaming at the mouth and screaming slurs.” She asserted that no matter how soft spoken and polite sidewalk counselors were, they were still harassing and intimidating women (the mass killing of the unborn is not violence, but imploring someone not to kill is violence), and even suggested that 77 year old Eleanor McCullen was standing “literally — in your way to get health care.”
Weiss went on to repeat various accusations fabricated by abortionists and their supporters, including the bizarre charge that pro-lifers, when not filming women, impersonated police officers to acquire their telephone numbers.
Ex-Catholic Yvonne Abraham, in a metro column three days later, continued the disinformation campaign, claiming that pro-lifers recorded the license plate numbers on women’s cars, dressed up as security guards, screamed at women and obstructed them. Neither Weiss nor Abraham offered any documentation to substantiate their assertions. (Congratulations, by the way, to League member Gail Ryberg, for her letter to the editor, published by the Globe, criticizing Abraham’s column.)
Pro-abortion former Boston City Councilor Tom Keane, in another metro column, defended the court’s decision, but then called for new, constitutionally permissible legislation to restrain pro-lifers.
THE BOSTON HERALD:
The Boston Herald editorialized in favor of the ruling, but then, with the schizophrenia, or, if you prefer, double dealing, characteristic of the city’s tabloid, allowed, or directed, the intellectually challenged Margery Eagan, with her cocktail party level of discourse, to excoriate the decision. Interestingly, Eagan, claimed (in what may be a self-revealing admission) that pro-life activists wanted to “shame and judge” women.
THE WORCESTER TELEGRAM:
The Telegram & Gazette of Worcester, which is no longer owned by the Globe, provided a refreshing exception to the party line propagated by most of the Massachusetts media. In a June 29th editorial entitled “Free to disagree,” the Telegram supported the court ruling, expressed skepticism over claims of pro-life violence, and said that for critics of the decision, their argument was with the First Amendment.
