PrintJanuary 23, 2010
Impressive Media Malpractice at March For Life
In January 2009 we brought a six-man camera crew to Washington to create a documentary on the subject of the annual March for Life called Thine Eyes.
What motivated Steve Sanborn, the organizer of the project and a March veteran, was the media's historic failure to capture the numbers, the demographics or the spirit of the marchers.
With the advantage of rooftop cameras, we estimated there were about 350,000 participants, about 75 percent of whom were under 25, with more females than males among the young people. I also assigned our six cameramen to find as many pro-abortion protestors as they could. Although we looked hard, none of us could identify a single such protestor. USA Today found a rag tag handful and gave them equal billing.
In covering the 2010 March, the media have morphed from laziness and incompetence to outright fraud. Someone should be fired.
Let us start with Krista Gesaman writing for Newsweek. Her headline sums up the utter absurdity of her thesis, "Missing at the 'Roe v. Wade' Anniversary Demonstrations? Young Women." Twisting the words of a police organizer, she informs the reader that "a majority of the participants are in their 60s."
This leads Gesaman to conclude, "So this raises the question: where are the young, vibrant women supporting their pro-life or pro-choice positions? Likely, they're at home." All Gesaman had to do was stick her head out the window to know otherwise.
Having been in Washington for the March this year, I can assure Gesaman that the demographics matched last year's, Young women were everywhere and unavoidable. They filled every hotel lobby in town. Many of them had spent countless hours on busses to get there.
CNN's Rick Sanchez also deserves sacking for malpractice. During the 3PM ET hour of CNN's Rick's List on Friday, Sanchez acknowledged that it was the 37th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade, then asked, "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?"
As Sanchez deliberated, CNN's cameras seemed to have found the same disgruntled crew of pro-abortion protestors that USA Today had found the year before. After the commercial break, Sanchez finally conceded that although he had not "gone out and counted signs individually," most of the protestors "seem to be anti-abortion activists."
Rick, we counted the protestors last year. The numbers broke out roughly 350,000 pro-life to 5 pro-abort. Krista, at least 100.000 of these protestors were young women. To verify, please check thineeyes.org. You don't even have to leave your offices -- not that you would.
