If Americans needed any further evidence of the blatant bias and disregard for the truth displayed by the increasingly discredited establishment press, the coverage — or lack thereof — of two recent demonstrations in Washington, D.C., provided a perfect illustration. One tiny protest was seeking more gun control and was promptly plastered all over the front pages. The other march, which was virtually ignored by the press despite record-breaking attendance, sought protection for the lives of unborn children.
On Friday, as The New American reported, more than 500,000 people, according to reliable estimates, converged on the capital for the annual pro-life March for Life. They came from all across the country in support of protecting the lives of unborn children to mark the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which improperly purported to legalize the killing of babies by inventing “rights” not listed in the Constitution or anywhere else.
Despite the massive size of the historic march, the media barely noticed it. According to the non-partisan Media Research Center, the marches did not garner a single “syllable of coverage” from ABC or CBS. While ABC could not find the time to mention the demonstration for life on Friday evening, though, it was certainly not because there were too many other critical stories to tell.
“Anchor Diane Sawyer made time for an update on the supposed controversy over complaints Subway’s ‘foot-long’ subs are sometimes only eleven inches long. Horrors,” noted Brent Baker, vice president for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. “Sawyer allocated 28 seconds to this.”
There were plenty of newsworthy events going on at the March for Life, too. “Can a nation long endure that does not respect the sanctity of life?” asked U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the many lawmakers who spoke at the rally. “Can a nation conceived in liberty carry its head high if it denies protection to the youngest and most vulnerable of its citizens?”
If the record-breaking march complete with top national leaders was mentioned at all in newspapers, it was barely a footnote. The few outlets that did cover it often used pictures of a few pro-abortion supporters to illustrate the article, drawing fury from readers. Many media outlets did not a have a single word about the massive demonstration at all.
In fact, the huge story was ignored so completely that it never even hit the “top stories” section in Google news, offering further proof that the establishment press all but ignored the enormous demonstration. Most of the major papers and “media” outlets simply pretended like the March for Life never happened.
Imagine, though, if over 500,000 people had marched on Washington for higher taxes on the rich, gun control, in support of killing babies, or other statist causes. Analysts say the press would have been all over it for weeks, asking lawmakers why they were ignoring the will of the people. When more than half-a-million Americans demand an end to the legalized slaughter of millions of babies, however, not even a peep was heard from most of the establishment press.
Compare that media coverage to the attention lavished on a pitifully miniscule “march” the next day demanding more infringements on the unalienable right to keep and bear arms, which was the top story on Google news for hours. When “thousands” of people — some media estimates acknowledge fewer than 1,000 actually participated in the demonstration despite other claims — the tiny event favoring more restrictions on the Second Amendment became instant front-page news across America, complete with lies and distortions about the numbers in attendance.
USA Today, the largest newspaper by readership in America, had its homepage covered with articles about the “puny” rally. “Thousands rally in Washington for gun control,” read the headline of the paper, which was quickly ridiculed in the comment section of the article. “Despite chilly temperatures and snow-covered ground, supporters came from around the country came to make their statement,” the paper “reported,” despite the same chilly temperatures endured by hundreds of thousands of pro-lifers assembled the day before that never got mentioned. CNN and every other “mainstream” media source had similar lies about the numbers in attendance while acting as virtual cheerleaders for the cause.
The Washington Post, while celebrating the rally in prominent articles, offered a slightly more realistic estimate on the numbers, saying “nearly 1,000 people” had joined the march. CBS was also more accurate when it said that “close to a thousand” had demanded more restrictions on unalienable rights. Analysts, and especially gun rights supporters and pro-life activists, however, ridiculed the press for putting its hostile and deceptive bias on full display for the world, helping to further discredit the already widely mistrusted establishment media.
In a series of exposés, the Media Research Center, which recently said the media elites were “unhinged,” pointed to the complete silence on the March for Life compared with the attention showered on its pet causes. Despite ignoring the pro-lifers on Friday, “on Saturday night, both [ABC and CBS] newscasts highlighted a pro-gun control protest in DC which CBS anchor Jim Axelrod pegged at drawing ‘close to a thousand people,’” the MRC’s Baker wrote.
The same phenomenon was observed last year and, basically, every year that hundreds of thousands of Americans have converged on D.C. to protest legalized abortion, even though polls show most Americans are now pro-life. Even some members of the establishment press have admitted their overt bias when dealing with pro-life causes, yet they continue to masquerade as “unbiased” reporters.
“I think that when abortion opponents complain about a bias in newsrooms against their cause, they’re absolutely right,” Boston Globe legal reporter Ethan Bronner was quoted as saying by the Los Angeles Times in 1990. “Opposing abortion, in the eyes of most journalists … is not a legitimate, civilized position in our society.”
Indeed, MRC has published a collection of some of the most outrageous quotes from the establishment press regarding their hostility toward pro-life causes. It also pointed to polls of “mainstream” journalists showing that they are way outside the “mainstream” when it comes to their far-left views — over 90 percent of the nation’s “top journalists,” the so-called “media elite,” supported legalized killing of children.
Considering just the two examples from this weekend, it is hardly a surprise that Americans no longer trust the establishment press. In fact, according to a Gallup survey released in September of last year, the distrust of the media has reached a new record — 60 percent of Americans now have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly.
Among Republicans, only one fourth trusted the media, along with 31 percent of independents. Democrats appear to be the most gullible, with over 50 percent saying they trust the press. Still, the media’s credibility ratings are cratering faster than their advertising revenue and readership figures.
“Media sources must clearly do more to earn the trust of Americans, the majority of whom see the media as biased one way or the other,” Gallup said about its poll results. “At the same time, there is an opportunity for others outside the ‘mass media’ to serve as information sources that Americans do trust.”
As the phony, media-drive gun-control “debate” continues, and as the press continues to ignore the grievances of millions of Americans to push the establishment’s anti-liberty and anti-American agenda instead, those numbers are likely to continue plummeting. Out of the ashes of what critics have started calling the “lamestream media” or the “dinosaur press,” however, the alternative media are rising, growing by leaps and bounds even as the deceitful establishment “news” outlets continue their death spiral into irrelevance.
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, politics, and more. He can be reached at [email protected].
Photos: AP Images
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